REVIEW : THE TORMENT

THE TORMENT (aka The Possession Of David O'Reilly)

I love having friends round to stay, but then don’t we all? Even if they’re being pursued by demons? Sure. The more the merrier…hang on. Did you say demons?

Alex and Kate are having a quite night in, about to head to bed, when a knock at the door reveals Alex’ old friend David. He has left his cheating girlfriend and doesn’t know where else to go. The couple take him in and before long David begins to see things, things that have followed him. Suddenly the couple find themselves trapped in David’s world of demons and the dead with no escape.

The Torment starts out as an extremely promising concept, and the camera work and story telling are great from the offset. It brings us straight into the characters and then begins to slowly build the fear. Setting up semi-clever plot devices, such as the camera that turns on to track movement that the couple have bought for home security. The first sighting of one of David’s ‘demons’ is immensely well executed and brings in the fear factor early on.

Unfortunately as the film progresses, the acting stays top notch, if at times a bit too ‘British’ with heavy accents sometime feeling a little put on. But where this film falls is as we move around the apartment complex into a story that I suddenly found very difficult to follow and with the bright, in your face camera, trying to pull the tale along, it wasn’t long before it became boring and a little tedious to watch.

The film is very original in its style and substance, but for me I felt that it almost ran away of it own accord leaving the plot way off in the dark, so to speak. There is still a lot on offer here though, a great idea, some immensely good creature fx work that is extremely reminiscent of The Thing and the performances, for the most part, are top notch.

OVERALL

The Torment is a great idea, in fact a bunch of great ideas, that are just not executed quite right. I like the film in many respects, but the confusing nature of it was nearly enough to put me off. Still if you find this lying around then do check it out. It might be right up your street.

Mycho