New Release Horror: Betrothed

Betrothed isn't out until July. But, we've got your review right now. 





Dude. I'm all bloody. 
First Comes Abduction, Then Comes Marriage” [1].

This is a low budget horror film about a girl that is abducted by a highly dysfunctional family in order to become the bride for one of the sons. The opening title scenes basically tell you that this is going to be a torture porn film.

Unfortunately, the film plays out like a soap opera version of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and gets somewhat ridiculous and predictable. I felt like I was watching a television soap opera with bad characters, bad dialogue, and bad acting. The characters just were not very interesting, except for the mom who was somewhat amusing in a dark way and had a few good lines. She was the best part of the movie.

It is trying to be an exploitative horror film, with nudity, violence, blood, and gore. It does deliver on that end. Fans of blood and guts violence will be pleased on that end. There is some bad cgi blood and bullets, which is regrettable. I don’t see the point of using computer generated blood when you’re already using practical effects.

The directing is done well. I recently watched Deadly Famous, which Jim Lane co-directed and that film was shot great. This is much the same. There is a nice opening shot, scenes were framed well, there was a good crane shot, and there was some high quality scenic cinematography. The director clearly has talent and could create a superior film if he had a larger budget, better story, and experienced actors.

What's in the trunk?!!!!
This was a low budget film made for around $450,000, yet I’m not quite sure where the money actually went. It feels like they could have done so much more. Maybe it was the film stock, paying for locations, or paying for the rights to a Lit song that played on their end credits. I just don’t know. But, I’ve seen films with a much lower budget come out with so a good deal more than this one.

This obviously was an attempt to make an exploitative or grindhouse film. The problem is that it looked to clean. The creators of this film should have gone all out and made it look gritty and dark and maybe poke fun at the characters and the genre. Bottom line, this is a version of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre without the grittiness and interesting characters that make those films iconic.

If you like low budget horror films with gore and violence, then you may find this interesting. Otherwise, you’re going to want to stay away from it.

Score

-Raul Vantassle



Cited
[1]
"IMDB," IMDB, 17 4 2016. [Online]. Available: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3682546/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_1. [Accessed 17 4 2016].