Entertaining rework of old thriller themes

Rating: 5/10 (28 March 2017)

I found this film to be entertaining and thrilling even if fairly predictable. The lead actor who played Chris was by far the best of the cast. His sense of unease about spending the weekend at his white girlfriend's family home at a secluded location, which grew incrementally as events unfolded, was well played. he is an easy protagonist to pull for.
The above is the good part. The bad is that the film was predictable to anyone who has seen The Stepford Wives and to a lesser extent, Rosemary's Baby. As with many of these films of this genre, the plot doesn't really hold together. For example the method by which Chris effects his escape by placing stuffing from the chair he is strapped into into his ears so he could not hear the hypnotic suggestions which kept him compliant. How did he get it into his ears if his hands were bound? That's OK though, the more disturbing thing for me is that if this film was meant to be in part a commentary on race relations and racial stereotypes, was having him brutally kill all of his captors while making his escape the only solution? Don't get me wrong, like everyone else, that felt cathartic to me, but I felt the film veered into Django Unchained territory there.