USA-Horror-88 min-English-2010 –Director: Taylor Sheridan –Cast: Eric Beck, April Matson, Akeem Smith, Mata Hazen, Heidi Mueller, Elisha Skorman, Greg Cipes, Rob Kirkland, Ian Bohenm
No Smile For Vile
Well I didn’t really want to see this film after reading a tagline that includes reading, “eight strangers waking up in a house forced to hurt one another with lots of pain in order to survive”. I thought it sound similar to a Saw 8 coming to theaters and that franchise has already outdone itself so why create another. However, I’ve come across so many films throughout this festival full of pain, agony, and suffering thus I thought why not see an actual film where that is the intended emotion. A horror film appearing during a time where we are seeing constant horror film remakes. Perhaps the film world is losing its original terror stories that are just plain scary and unpredictable and unlike any other we have seen before. I’m hoping that a new genre is approaching where we have torture meets slim comedy meets sexual appeal. Now these are all great elements that can make up your 21st century horror film. Therefore we arrive to “Vile”, a horror film that mirrors ideals of the “Saw” series, but can still stand alone on its original premise. The story depicts a group of strangers picked to live together and have their lives taped, where one finds out when people stop being polite and start using pliers to cut off human parts...Real World: Vile!
The film “Vile” proved to be an actual decent film that had me on the edge of my seat as I covered my ears and eyes for fear of what would happen next. The plot is that the strangers are all held hostage in a house and can only survive and escape if they acquire 100% bodily chemical releases such as adrenaline, dopamine, and serotonin from each other. The only way they can possibly do this is by physically causing pain to one another in all sorts of various ways to secrete these bodily chemicals and that is when the torturing begins and we see the depths that humans will go through to save themselves. Once I realized that this was the concept, well I knew I had to stay to see how these series of events would unfold. Then to my surprise, this was actually not a bad film at all. The storyline was way off on its science of acquiring these drugs, but overlooking this absurdity allowed for the audience to focus more on the acting and the tone set throughout the film.
I squirmed in my seat, I covered my ears, and I placed my hand over my face only leaving a space between my fingers to watch scenes of this movie. The thing is that this film was not actually too graphic nor gory. It had ability to invoke the sentiment of fear and anguish within its audience viewers by arousing the thought alone of this tremendous pain. An excessive amount of pain that people could actually perform on one another and the thought that people would do this if it meant survival. We did not see some of the physical acts carry out throughout this film but we heard bones crushing, fingers being cut off, and witnessed body parts being burned to extreme measures. We envisioned the worst of the worst happening to these characters and could only imagine ourselves in their positions and our bodies going through such tortuous acts. The thought alone and the sounds that I experienced of extreme pain were scary enough and that is where fear came in. The fear that you can’t control what happens to you and I thought that this film portrayed that convincingly. I was somehow placed into this film and going through these mixed emotions of survival and optimism turned to anger, fear, and just failure.
It was en ensemble of unknown actors and actresses, but I think that is the only way that this film could work. I was not going into this film with any inclination of the characters I would see or even like. I was discovering who these eight individuals were right along with the characters in the film. I was a stranger among this cast and it was becoming evident who I wanted to see survive and who I would not miss. The acting itself was not superb, but somehow it was just right to carry along this film. In this film, the quality of acting possessed a sort of mocking and sarcastic humor mixed with outlandish hysteria and it worked. I would laugh, I would raise an eyebrow, and I would close my eyes. I was emotionally hooked to the film and I had to finish it out and see how this story would conclude and who would be the last one standing. I had to see if this story could wrap up itself without the suggestion of a follow up film. I thought the film “Vile” delivered, as I experienced this fear build inside of me because these were heinous acts that could literally happen to the human body. The film did not overdo itself and attempt to become something it is not. In other words, the excruciating actions were not that unconventional that it became unbelievable. However, the quick recovery after these acts was baffling, but again the reasoning behind this entire film was already questionable from the beginning. When watching a scary film such as this one, I find myself sort of accepting the film for what it is and to not question its doubtful aspects because somehow there is still a story there. I think if a horror film has the ability to still keep me on the edge of my seat and intrigue me enough as to what’s coming next on that screen, then it has the potential to be a great thriller. Therefore I think “Vile” holds up to its stance that it is a horror film, one that is still capable of awakening those little hairs on my arm.
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