‘Betrothed’ [Review]

Ever since I first witnessed Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I’ve been obsessed with sadistic families in films, but saying that it also goes back to Wes Cravens The Last House on the Left and Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring, but I think it was Hooper’s vision which really sparked my interest in the cannibal kind. Since then, we have had a slew of imitators and that’s all good, but some are better than others.

So, when I heard of Jim Lane’s Betrothed, I just had to check this sucker out to see how it holds up, and well, it’s okay, it’s definitely not without its warts but it chugs along at a steady pace.

The film sets up the tone immediately. A young woman happens to have a little car trouble and within a few minutes a couple of good Samaritans come to her aid in the form of two brothers, unfortunately their help comes at a price and she is soon sedated and taken away to their home in the backwoods. The woman is raped and killed by one of the brothers while the other and their mother stand and watch in glee.

So you have your twisted family in place and the story then progresses to our protagonist Audra West (Mikayla Gibson), a beautiful young girl who catches the eye of one of the brothers while out at a little grocery stop. Soon she too becomes sedated and it becomes apparent that most of the town is in someway related or connected to the sadistic family.

Audra soon becomes a slave and a potential wife to Adam (Jamie B. Cline), one of the two brothers, the other being Nate Cooper (Adam Dunnells) who has a wife, well, slave of his own and we soon witness the abuse she takes. All of this is orchestrated by their mother Ginnie (Bunny Gibson), who is deeply religious and definitely off her hinges. But sadly for this family, they picked the wrong woman to kidnap as Audra can certainly handle herself and soon a bloodbath ensues, but this family ain’t going down without a fight.

Things get a little more intricate, but going further into detail would just spoil the experience. So, at first I almost wrote this film off sadly as one of the first special effects you see is a severed finger with some truly awful blood CGI, but the weird thing is that the rest of the film utilizes some pretty stellar practical effects, so it just boggles my mind as to why they would give us some shoddy blood CGI, when the film is then filled with practical effects. So please stick with it.

Now onto the main Cooper family, are they sadistic? Yes, in a way, but their body language doesn’t really reflect that, I just didn’t really feel that torturous vibe from them, they just didn’t feel “evil” enough which is a shame as the potential was there. The same goes for the revenge aspect, we want to see that hatred, that raw tenacity for survival from our protagonist, but it just seems lacking, instead we get a few wise-cracking puns.

But saying that, further into the film we meet there extended Cooper family with the likes of Lester Cooper (Bill Oberst Jr.), his character just emits this vile persona, sadly he is only in for a few scenes, so it’s just frustrating, as if they had this type of sadistic family I would of been more invested, but sadly it came too little too late.

There’s also a detective running around, but it didn’t really add much to the story, instead it kind of detracted you from the story and it feels almost lost.

The thing is though, for the most part the film chugs along at a steady pace and at just 90-minutes it does the job; it’s entertaining, it does what it says on the tin, for the most part, and it doesn’t overstay it’s welcome. There are moments that reflect back Steven Sheil’s Mom & Dad, but it just doesn’t come close in tone which is a shame as it could have been up there.

For me it’s just frustrating as the potential was there, it just needs to be moved around a bit. If Bill Oberst Jr., was part of the main family I would have become more invested, as that dude can sell being a demented, twisted freak like no other, so here’s hoping we get something that focuses on his character in the future.

All in all, it’s entertaining, but it’s lacking in-depth in some of the characters. Is it worth a watch? Yeah, if not for Bill Oberst’s addition alone. Find it on VOD this July 15, 2016.