Don't believe all the negative hype

Rating: 7/10 (21 January 2006)

I don't get why everyone made such a big fuss over this movie. From reading all the posts on here I expected the worst movie ever made. It's NOT a porno, the nudity is no worse than your average Road Trip or American Pie. The violence is nothing new (and mainly offscreen), although it is gorier than Saw, although that's not saying much. There is vomiting, for those of you that don't like that kind of stuff, but even that isn't too bad. If you've seen High Tension Unrated than this is a walk in the park. It's not as bad a movie as people make it seem. I think they were just expecting something great because QT's name was on it (although I'm not a fan of QT). People should just enjoy it as a horror flick. It could've been scarier, more intense, and had a better story. The trailer is much, much better.
*spoiler* I didn't really care much for the main character getting revenge. Yes, if I was in his situation, I'd feel the same way, but the movie didn't make me feel his anger. Although it is satisfying to see the torturer's put in the victim's place, Breakdown does this much better.
*end spoiler* There are many MUCH worse horror films out there. There are lots of better ones, too. I can see how one would be disturbed and horrified by the subject matter, for it's obviously not very light. The scenery of the basement is darkly reminiscent of Session 9. Some images could haunt some viewer's dreams if dwelled upon at night, particularly a shot where Paxton walks past several doors with people getting tortured. Really, though, you'll probably forget about this movie after you watch it but it's not a waste of time. Torture barely takes up much screen time at all, maybe less than 2 minutes. If it wanted to be more disturbing it should've placed the viewer in the torture chair and should've been relentless instead of a quick 1 minute clip and then the torture is over, with most of it not shown. Real life is much worse than this.