Horror thriller starring Cary Elwes, Leigh Whannell and Danny Glover. Two apparently unconnected men wake up to find themselves mysteriously chained to the wall in a crumbling, subterranean bathroom. As they try to come to terms with their dilemma, one is told he must kill the other or his wife and daughter will die.
At the time of its release in 2004, it was perhaps inevitable that this unsettling debut from director James Wan would be compared with Se7en. Not only do they share similarly skewed serial-killing themes, but their style, tension and sheer viciousness put them in the same genre pigeonhole. Told, unusually, from the point of view of the victims, this well-acted thriller chillingly questions how far an individual will go to stay alive. Leigh Whannell (who also wrote the screenplay) and Cary Elwes become the latest playthings of a game-obsessed psychopath, finding themselves chained to opposite walls in a crumbling, subterranean bathroom, with no recollection of how they got there. With its jerky, grainy cinematography and nerve-jangling industrial soundtrack, the film is more disturbing than terrifying. It's like an extended Nine Inch Nails rock video as imagined by Dario Argento. However just when you think you've got it sussed, the movie throws in some audacious twists, resulting in one of the most memorable climaxes in screen history. No surprise, then, that it spawned a highly lucrative and prolific franchise.
| role | name |
|---|---|
| Dr Lawrence Gordon | Cary Elwes |
| Adam | Leigh Whannell |
| Detective David Tapp | Danny Glover |
| Alison Gordon | Monica Potter |
| Kerry | Dina Meyer |
| John | Tobin Bell |
| Zep Hindle | Michael Emerson |
| Detective Steven Sing | Ken Leung |
| Diana Gordon | Makenzie Vega |
| Amanda | Shawnee Smith |
| Brett | Benito Martinez |
| role | name |
|---|---|
| Director | James Wan |
