Scandal and horror aren’t exactly strangers to one another, and sometimes bad press is good for business. However, Captivity’s own controversy didn’t do it any favors, financially speaking; this 2007 movie flopped at the box office. What caused the public ire back then was a promotional campaign that onlookers found to be disturbing. In all likelihood, the most hardened horror heads probably didn’t bat an eye at that multi-paneled “abduction, confinement, torture, termination” billboard ad. Even that one poster of Captivity lead Elisha Cuthbert (House of Wax), the one where she’s buried in sand, pressed up against glass, and her chest is emphasized for obvious reason, isn’t especially egregious. Maybe it’s worth an eyeroll. Nevertheless, it wasn’t fans of the horror genre who took issue and aired their complaints to Lionsgate and the MPA.
Sure, Captivity’s ad blitz can be accused of being distasteful—it was just one example of “escapist art” found in that period of horror—but at least it wasn’t deceitful. The movie, in its finished state, is exactly what it was sold as; a young and popular model named Jennifer (Cuthbert) is held against her will, and she, along with another victim (Daniel Gillies, The Vampire Diaries), is tormented by an unknown captor. The weird thing is, Captivity wasn’t initially planned to be of the torture horror persuasion. Once After Dark Films picked up the thriller, reshoots were ordered nearly two years after production had wrapped. Executive producer Courtney Solomon, who oversaw the reshoots, thought inserting more graphic violence would replicate the success of Hostel and the like. Reflect the times and all that. Needless to say, he thought wrong.
Meeting the final cut of Captivity on its own terms isn’t ever easy, largely because this version lacks sincerity. The pivot to torture is transparent, not to mention uninspired and unscary. And what might have been a potentially intriguing story, one about celebrity, stalking and perception, is now compromised by these awkwardly grafted and gross set-pieces. For the most part, these sequences are front-loaded, but even still, they take up too much space and air out of the whole movie. They start to border on parody, due to their over-the-top nature and generic design. Cuthbert’s character is put through the wringer, just for the sake of it, then again and again until some semblance of the original form can finally emerge.
By then, though, it’s too late to salvage the movie.
Image: A poster for Captivity.
Looking past the silly embellishments and add-ins would take more effort than most are willing to make, but the few commentaries in the story—one cooked up by Larry Cohen—can’t be entirely blotted out by Solomon’s blunders. First off, Jennifer’s celebrity and openness make her an easy target for the public as well as her abductor. The perverse pleasure in Jennifer’s suffering is, with little subtlety, a twisted reflection of reality. It wasn’t that long ago when Hollywood starlets were hounded and ripped to shreds by the press; it was like a sick ritual every week. As for the torturer, he could be a remark on the relationship between directors and their actors, however, the idea is underdeveloped like the rest of the script.
There is a 30 Rock episode that’s worth mentioning when discussing the mishandling of Captivity. It’s also just damn funny. In Season Five’s “I Heart Connecticut” (2011), Jane Krakowski’s character Jenna Maroney is cast in an upcoming movie. After she explains the plot to her peers—”it’s kind of an artsy character study about a young woman who has a lot of holes drilled into her head”—one of them calls the movie a “torture porn thing like Saw.” And to that Jenna says “exactly!” and explains how the producers came up with the idea by simply renting Saw and watching it. Eventually, the project undergoes a series of drastic on and off-screen changes to better suit its constantly evolving target demographic, or appease a new backer, and as a result, the frankensteined product ends up being plain unwatchable. Now, if that doesn’t sound familiar…
Image: Elisha Cuthbert in Captivity.
It’s doubtful that 30 Rock was targeting Captivity with this particular subplot, yet the parallels are there. Of course, the modifications to Roland Joffé’s movie—Captivity being directed by the director of The Killing Fields is perhaps the most shocking thing about it—don’t include anything along the lines of enlisting Wal-Mart as a paid sponsor, or placating the state of Connecticut in exchange for tax breaks. There is, however, a shared desire to turn a profit by mutating the movie in question and appealing to a different audience. Courtney Solomon read the room at the time, albeit incorrectly, and believed people craved more splatter, not less, in their new horror. His estimation wasn’t completely unfounded; the Saw sequels were making big bucks for Lionsgate. That said, the Saw movies had cornered the market on torture and traps, and there was no room for competition, much less lousy imitators.
There will be those who read this and want to see for themselves how Captivity fares in their eyes. After all, it can be hard to resist what could be an underdog. Keep in mind, though, there are reasons why, when thinking back on this era of horror, no one brings up Captivity. And if they do, it’s likely because of its troubled history, which is far more interesting than the movie itself. Critics have definitely been known to rescind their negative reviews upon reassessment, but in this case, they were right the first time around.
Image: Daniel Gillies in Captivity.