Den (Greg Acre) has kidnapped four people, a
prostitute (Dana J.Ryan), an ex-nun (Sabrina O'Neil), a psychiatrist (Lee
Schall) and his wife (Stephanie Rettig), and locked them up in his
basement, each attached to a chain in a seperate corner of the room, just
so they cannot reach each other. With all of them just out of each other's
reach, Den starts playing his mindgames with them, playing them against
each other - because you see, they are all linked (without necessarily
knowing it): the psychiatrist's wife had a lesbian affair with the ex-nun,
while the psychiatrist, who's also a homophobe, racist and bigot, was a
regular at the hooker. Sometimes, too, Den just tortures them, and claims
to do everything in the name of God - which especially disgusts the
prostitute, the atheist of the bunch but also the only one who seems to
have any brains, because she's the one who tries to put up some
resistance, while the others are plainly too stupid to organize to fight
their oppressor. And thus, while the prostitute puts up a fight, the others are killed off one by one. The hooker, Den
keeps for last, but she's not stupid and tries to bring down the high
moral grounds Den pretends to walk with bible quotes that contradict each
other - which endsDen and her killing each other ...
The premise of this film - a religious fanatic who plays his (torture)
victims against one another - is actually pretty interesting, if at best
half as interesting as filmmaker Greg Acre wants it to be. Plus, Acre is
not half as subtle as a director as the film would have needed, his script
is rather crude, superficial, clichéed, lacking really interesting
characters, and full of plotholes (how come a hooker - or anybody for that
matter - knows quite as many bible quotes by heart?), and as an actor he
hams up his role a bit too much - which can be said about the whole cast
though. That's not to say that Den is a bad film, just that
it's not all that good either.
By the way, you might have noticed from my synopsis that Den
shares quite a few plot elements with the later and much better-known Saw
plus sequels - which did not go unnoticed by the filmmaker either, who
even considered sueing Saw's
production company ... and yet, while there might be similarities between the
two films, Den is not exactly walking new
grounds here (as stated above), and with a bit of research it's more than possible to come
up with a dozen or so similar films that were made even earlier - so no real
reason to point fingers here ...
review © by Mike Haberfelner
... and a second opinion by Dale Pierce ...
A very small company produced a very interesting film, where a religious
fanatic kidnaps a load of sinners and imprisons them, as he starts to play a
load of diabolical games. As the film progresses, it is revealed these people
are not total strangers to each other, but have various links and ties, which
this madman has known all along. The people have not been selected at random
Den is the name of the fat, bearded killer, played with convincing fury by
actor/director/writer/professional magician Greg Arce. He asks trivial pursuit
questions (I thought I was the only person who remembered the old tv show, Shennanigans, with Stubby Kay, in which kids played for prizes on this
gigantic gameboard, with one of the stopoffs being a haunted house, inhabited
by the Shenani-ghoul. I kid you not. The Den character brings this up in the
film), quotes from the scriptures, taunts, abuses and kills.
In the end, Den is confronted by a lone survivor, an atheist who chooses not to run, but to stand her ground. As Den tries to "save"
her, she
counters with glowing errors in The Bible which would make great fuel for
anyone wishing to argue the pros and cons of Christianity with their own
hopefully less psychotic Dens of the world. A knife-bladed crucifix points
the way, so to speak, and they end up dying together. No one in the script
leaves the film free and happy!
Similar to Saw or more specifically the story line for
Saw II (which I have
only seen trailers for)?
Yeah, Arce noticed that too and is seeing if there is
a possibility to bring suit against those involved with these two films. Will
it work out or does he have a case? That remains to be seen, but Clown Tears
staff made note that some of the people involved with Saw
had seen Den at a
film festival, thus giving him a little more grounds for action. The brewing
real-life battle may be more dramatic than anything in either film.
The Den character is particularly rattling to watch, for history shows many
such people have existed before, killing in the name of God, angelic voices
within the brain or murdering sinners in order to save them. The Catholic
Church was real good at that in The Inquisition and had he been born early
enough, Den would have fit right in, helping the likes of Bernard Gui or Tomas
Torquemada, several centuries ago.
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