The Torturer (2005)

Directed by: Lamberto Bava | 96 minutes | horror, thriller | Actors: Mario Blanco-Fafian, Elena Bouryka, Carlo Cassola, Simone Corrente, Valeria Cramerotti, Emilio De Marchi, Martina Micozzi, Elenonora Sannibale

This 2005 horror film is directed by Lamberto Bava. And Bava starts in an unmistakable way. In the opening scene we see how a tied up female victim is horribly tortured with iron hooks, a welding torch and also electrified in several ways. The viewers with weak nerves will probably give up immediately, but for lovers of the necessary explicitly portrayed horror it is a promising introduction to what is to come.

Immediately afterwards, we meet Ginette Casoni, the female protagonist who auditions with director Alex Cerba. And the far-fetchedness of various events is immediately noticeable. Both with regard to Ginette’s behavior during her audition, but also with regard to that of the models who come to audition at a later stage. It is hard to believe that any sane person would just meet the bizarre demands that are made of them during the auditions. In that respect, this should already be an indication of Cerba’s mental state. It soon turns out that you don’t quite like it. And although he also shows rather questionable behavior on other fronts, Ginette does start an affair with him. Even when Ginette suspects that he may have had a hand in her friend’s disappearance, she still maintains the relationship with him in order to track down her friend.

Enough possibilities to present a story in which the necessary tension can be evoked, it seems. But for Bava it is still not enough and he throws in some additional ingredients or. subplots against. Alex Cerba turns out not only to suffer from childhood trauma, but also to suffer from hallucinations. In addition, Cerba’s mother repeatedly passes by, whose mental state also leaves something to be desired and who spews nothing but apparent nonsense. Furthermore, a few people come up with whom Cerba and his mother have a tense and unclear relationship. And throughout the story, we see how Ginette’s investigation into her missing friend progresses, all the while complicated by the vicissitudes she experiences in her relationship with Cerba. As a result of the various situations presented to the viewer, the idea quickly arises that the various elements in the story have been introduced in order to be able to give it the necessary twists, thereby increasing the tension at different moments and to mislead the viewer. to put.

Bava does indeed manage to evoke a certain amount of tension on several occasions. Unfortunately not for long and in most cases far too little. Because the story is also characterized by a lack of logic and implausibility in the various developments. And combined with the excess of irrelevant ingredients, this distracts too much and undermines the tension that Bava tries to evoke in different situations. The main effect that Bava achieves with his approach is that the viewer is misled about various aspects in the story, but the answers to various questions raised in the story are too far-fetched and too exaggerated to be taken seriously. to take. It’s a shame that Bava didn’t take a more restrained approach in this regard, because that would have greatly improved the credibility and thus the quality of this production. As a storyteller, Bava does not show himself too skilled, at least in this film. And the acting of the various actors and actresses is not of a particularly memorable level either. She can’t possibly be blamed for this either, given the limited possibilities that a story with such improbabilities and illogicalities has to offer. This film can be regarded as an entertaining trash film, but for the horror fan it will usually take more to keep the attention.

Bava indeed offers the horror fan enough other material for that. Because with the regularity of the clock, several models keep coming to audition, who then fall prey to the director who hangs around in the dark in the background. And so we are presented with images of the most sadistic torture to which the tied models are subjected in various degrees of nudity. In addition to the examples mentioned above, a selection of the tortures used: applying electricity to various body parts, ripping open breasts with iron hooks, ripping off a piercing from a nipple, roughing off a carwat fitted with iron hooks with iron hooks. a spinning wheel tied a victim, cutting open and driving nails into body parts, burning with glowing solder, drowning in a room that slowly fills with water and various other atrocities. Not much is left to the viewer’s imagination in all of this. Bava portrays the torture in close-up and does not spare his viewers.

This also makes clear the main purpose of this production: to present a range of the most horrific torture applied to the scantily clad female models possible. This production doesn’t offer much more noteworthy than that. And it can be said that the hardcore horror junkie with the portrayed tortures has little reason to complain, but that for lovers of the less intense horror work, things can sometimes go too far. And for the casual viewer who has nothing to do with the horror genre, the tortures presented will mainly come across as sickly, just as sickened as the spirit of ‘the torturer’ itself turns out to be. This film is mainly recommended for lovers of explicitly portrayed atrocities and for moderate horror fans who want to push their boundaries to the more extreme work.