DVD Review by Aaron Williams
It’s an ugly term ‘torture porn,’ and it’s thrown around way too often in today’s cinematic climate. For those who pay their admission fees simply to catch sight of faceless victims being systematically disembowelled only to have narrative and characterisation fall to the wayside, it’s the mark of a hell of a good time – for the rest of us, it couldn’t be further from the truth and I’m sure everyone involved in Territories will agree. Forget the juvenile antics of Eli Roth and his ilk, director Oliver Abbou has a far meatier meal for our starving brain cells.
Five friends – couple Jalil (Micheal Mando) and Leslie (Nicole Leroux), screenwriter Michelle (Cristina Rosato), Gab and Leslie’s mute younger brother Tom (Alexandre Weiner) – travel from a wedding when they are pulled to a stop by two men who identify themselves as border patrol. They co-operate peacefully with the officers despite how unhinged the two men appear. Just as everything seemed to be calming down Tom’s stash of weed is found which sends the two officers into a frenzy. They begin to ferociously process the gang, forcing them to strip at gun point then imprisoning them in cages built for trapping wild animals.
The origins behind the ‘officers’ cruel methods are soon revealed. Left psychologically scarred by the first Gulf war and guard work at Guantanamo Bay, Samuel (Roc LaFortune) and Walter (Sean Devine) have been hidden away in their isolated forest cabin for far too long, two forgotten tools of the American military now obsolete, confused and very dangerous.
It can be easy to quickly wade into the all too obvious political subtext here – the images are screaming out at us – strip the film to its core and we have a nasty little survival horror on our hands that nods to Deliverance and perhaps even tips its hat at Texas Chainsaw. Reading the press release, it spares no time in telling us this was brought to us by the producers of the splatter-fantastic The Horde so admittedly, I was pumped for another intense French horreur. What we have here is a far more grounded nightmare. If heads started exploding or flesh starting tearing then the film would lose a lot of its punch.
Watching the friends unravel under interrogation, slowly loosening their grips on their dignity is pretty upsetting as the lack of food and water begins to make them weak – even more terrified of the consequences of resistance. It’s these key scenes of what is pretty much a film heavily reliant on the performances where I wondered if the actors had the chops to take them to such extremities. Luckily, the performances are pretty solid with Michael Mando standing out.
We do get to spend time with the deranged odd couple Samuel and Walter, offering much needed respite from the torture scenes and giving us a revealing insight into the dynamic between them. Again I was surprised how much the actors stepped up to the plate here, especially for a straight to DVD title. The men come across as a twisted take on George and Lennie from Of Mice And Men, maintaining their impromptu army encampment, hating the liberal world and any outsiders unlucky enough to pass on through.
Things take a slight turn as we completely lose focus of the primary characters when we are introduced to a private detective (Stephen Shellen) hired to track down the prisoners. Not an unwelcome narrative development by any means, but it’s so jarring that it seems to deflate the sense of dread that has been built up in the preceding hour, almost as if the writer was stumped as to where to take the victims next. But thankfully there’s no lazy cat and mouse scenes of victims hiding in dark corners in a final bid for freedom, seen far too often – save that for the next slasher (sorry slasher films, I still love you!)
An impressive little straight to DVD shocker with brains then, that sadly missteps at the last hurdle. Sure, the writing is guilty of taking yet another wagging finger at America but don’t let that put you off from an otherwise memorable first outing from what promises to be a prominent name in horreur!
Catch Territories on DVD on the 12th of September from the good people at Arrow films.