It is time to start another year already. I watched Tormented (2009) yesterday but a host of problems kept me from writing. Well, more like it kept me out of the mood to write. I had a pretty good headache all day, with nothing at home to take for it. It is cold enough to where my car won't start. And to top things off, I am pretty sure one of my cats has stopped eating. Being the weekend and holiday, nothing was open and I don't know if I will have the money to find out what is wrong with the cat anyway. Update: I didn't want to see her starve to death so I had her put down. So, yeah, not a great way to start the year. Enough about my problems though, let's see what I thought about Tormented.
Justine (Tuppence Middleton) is the head girl at school so she gives a speech for Darren at his funeral. Darren was bullied by the popular students, though they seem to have covered it all up fairly well. After the funeral, Alexis (Dimitri Leonidas) asks Justine out to a party that his friends are having that night. They are telling everyone it is to honor Darren, but in truth, it is to celebrate that he is no longer around.Justine admits that she doesn't remember Darren at all, even after his best friend gives her a note from Darren showing that he had a crush on her. As Justine becomes part of the popular group, she begins to see how much that they do bully people and now some of them are being killed off. They believe Darren has returned but has he?
Tormented comes from the UK and was written by Stephen Prentice and directed by Jon Wright. I wasn't sure how well I would like this movie going into it. While the whole bully thing is nothing new to horror, there haven't been a lot of films about it. At least, not many that I have watched. Since the story follows the popular kids who aren't all that nice to anyone that isn't in their group, it was hard to get behind the characters. They weren't flat out evil or anything, but just being general assholes, even to each other at times. Some weren't as bad as others at first. Alexis, which I always thought of as a girls name, seems like a pretty good guy. He tries a little too hard to be funny when around Justine, but guys do that around women sometimes. Even in the videos that we see later, he isn't being as big of a jerk as some of the others, but it is there. It was actually Justine that annoyed more than anyone. When presented with a video that kicks her memory in about Darren, which shows her being rather snobbish towards him, she still acts like she did nothing wrong and kicks Alexis out of her house. The story for Tormented was just okay. I didn't love it but I didn't hate it. I probably would have given this movie a slightly lower rating because of the characters, but I rather liked where the story went right towards the end of it. The story hinted at a direction the story might go in but I threw that out after a while because too many of the characters were seeing Darren. The interesting thing is that it kicks in towards the end in a way that surprised me a little bit. This pushed the film back into average territory for me at least. There is also a scene just after the credits start, so be on the lookout for that if you watch this one.
Tormented ended up being rather gory in places. To be honest, I wasn't expecting much as far as effects went after the first half of the film. There wasn't much, if anything, to be found. But then it started to change. The biggest surprise happened when hands got cut off. We don't actually get to see it happen, but we do get the see the stumps with blood going everywhere. It wasn't the best looking effect that I have seen, but at least it was very gory. The acting was just okay. No one really stood out to me here, but I didn't hate anyone either. Alex Pettyfer, April Pearson, and Larissa Wilson round out some of the popular club. I guess different people played the part of Darren, like for just showing his hands or something like that, but it was Calvin Dean who gave Darren a face.
I could be wrong, but I think the movie takes place in Australia. I thought it was mentioned at one point or the characters could have just been talking about it for some reason. A lot of the characters also say things like oi, which I thought to be an Australian thing. I never figured out what was so special about being a "head girl" in school. She has a pin for it though. Tormented ended up being a middle of the road horror film for me. I didn't love or hate it. If it wasn't for the ending, I may have thought less of it, not that it is a bad film overall. I just didn't find it all that interesting. I think it would have been a better film if they had gone the way that it was hinted at for a bit there, but they didn't. Not completely anyway. Tormented does manage an average rating on IMDb so it would seem that I voted with the majority this time around. Not a great film but might be worth checking out.
3 out of 5 Trying not to beat myself up too much
Justine (Tuppence Middleton) is the head girl at school so she gives a speech for Darren at his funeral. Darren was bullied by the popular students, though they seem to have covered it all up fairly well. After the funeral, Alexis (Dimitri Leonidas) asks Justine out to a party that his friends are having that night. They are telling everyone it is to honor Darren, but in truth, it is to celebrate that he is no longer around.Justine admits that she doesn't remember Darren at all, even after his best friend gives her a note from Darren showing that he had a crush on her. As Justine becomes part of the popular group, she begins to see how much that they do bully people and now some of them are being killed off. They believe Darren has returned but has he?
Tormented comes from the UK and was written by Stephen Prentice and directed by Jon Wright. I wasn't sure how well I would like this movie going into it. While the whole bully thing is nothing new to horror, there haven't been a lot of films about it. At least, not many that I have watched. Since the story follows the popular kids who aren't all that nice to anyone that isn't in their group, it was hard to get behind the characters. They weren't flat out evil or anything, but just being general assholes, even to each other at times. Some weren't as bad as others at first. Alexis, which I always thought of as a girls name, seems like a pretty good guy. He tries a little too hard to be funny when around Justine, but guys do that around women sometimes. Even in the videos that we see later, he isn't being as big of a jerk as some of the others, but it is there. It was actually Justine that annoyed more than anyone. When presented with a video that kicks her memory in about Darren, which shows her being rather snobbish towards him, she still acts like she did nothing wrong and kicks Alexis out of her house. The story for Tormented was just okay. I didn't love it but I didn't hate it. I probably would have given this movie a slightly lower rating because of the characters, but I rather liked where the story went right towards the end of it. The story hinted at a direction the story might go in but I threw that out after a while because too many of the characters were seeing Darren. The interesting thing is that it kicks in towards the end in a way that surprised me a little bit. This pushed the film back into average territory for me at least. There is also a scene just after the credits start, so be on the lookout for that if you watch this one.
Tormented ended up being rather gory in places. To be honest, I wasn't expecting much as far as effects went after the first half of the film. There wasn't much, if anything, to be found. But then it started to change. The biggest surprise happened when hands got cut off. We don't actually get to see it happen, but we do get the see the stumps with blood going everywhere. It wasn't the best looking effect that I have seen, but at least it was very gory. The acting was just okay. No one really stood out to me here, but I didn't hate anyone either. Alex Pettyfer, April Pearson, and Larissa Wilson round out some of the popular club. I guess different people played the part of Darren, like for just showing his hands or something like that, but it was Calvin Dean who gave Darren a face.
I could be wrong, but I think the movie takes place in Australia. I thought it was mentioned at one point or the characters could have just been talking about it for some reason. A lot of the characters also say things like oi, which I thought to be an Australian thing. I never figured out what was so special about being a "head girl" in school. She has a pin for it though. Tormented ended up being a middle of the road horror film for me. I didn't love or hate it. If it wasn't for the ending, I may have thought less of it, not that it is a bad film overall. I just didn't find it all that interesting. I think it would have been a better film if they had gone the way that it was hinted at for a bit there, but they didn't. Not completely anyway. Tormented does manage an average rating on IMDb so it would seem that I voted with the majority this time around. Not a great film but might be worth checking out.
3 out of 5 Trying not to beat myself up too much
