Captivity

Captivity
$14.98

1.0 out of 5 stars Expectedly terrible., June 30, 2009

I expected this movie to be terrible, and it met my expectations. I imagine this is how the idea was pitched to the producer: "It's 'Saw' meets 'Hostel' with a little bit of 'Dexter' thrown in." The movie manages to borrow heavily--and poorly--from the 'Saw' and 'Hostel' franchises and blatantly steals--again poorly--from 'Dexter.'

This movie is so terrible that I honestly believe in the years/decades to come it will be seen as the film that killed the current horror trend. The horror genre is one that comes in and out of fashion with the general movie-going public and I believe this film might just be responsible for ending the most recent movement just as 'Saw' can be said to have sparked it. It's a true trend-killer; the film is so bad that it literally casts a bad light on the entire genre--that bad. It will be a few years before the next horror trend is kicked off and my guess is that the genre will go in a different direction from the extreme violence/gore/torture trajectory typified in films such as 'Saw,' 'Wolf Creek' and 'Hostel' which dominated the 2004-2007 horror landscape.

Don't get me wrong: I am not knocking the aforementioned trend. I am merely arguing that this film is so terrible that it destroyed the trend by showing everyone just how bad the trend could be if taken to its logical extreme. 'Touristas' and 'Hostel 2' also did their part in that respect, too; this dreck just happened to be the straw the broke the camel's back.

The Girl Next Door
$26.98
this is one really disturbing. one of the most cruel things I have ever seen on film.

Captivity
$22.95
Dana Armstrong is the director of a chimpanzee sanctuary in South Carolina. The animals she and her under-funded staff tend to are primarily discards from experiments and research. The novel opens with a horrible discovery that someone has let the chimpanzees loose, some of them deemed dangerous by the locals. It appears that there are many residents and groups that want to see the sanctuary shut down and this event is a grave threat. As the story progresses we learn a great deal about Dana and her upbringing which seems to make sense of all the passion.

Dana's parents brought her up with a brother and a chimpanzee for a surrogate sibling in a curious unconventional family experiment. With such an unusual family dynamic, you learn to understand what drives Dana's passion. However, Dana grew in one direction while her brother, Zack went in another. Their upbringing is an interesting corollary for their adult concerns and passions.

One of the main forces driving the story is the threat of the local university closing the facility. This would not only mean a loss of a job, but the loss of the chimpanzees that Dana has grown to love over the years. In fact, sometimes it seems Dana's real family is this group of intelligent animals more than her own brother's relationship.

The author weaves a good story full of disaster, hope, tragedy, forgiveness and love. Her descriptions of emotional actions and reactions are spot-on. Each chapter presents a new twist with a new challenge and Dana finds herself growing at each turn. Whether its her relationship with her boyfriend, her brother or her staff friends, she evolves, sometimes with surprising results. "Captivity" is all about relationships, whether they be human or primate. As this novel illustrates, not all turn out the way we expect.

Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul
$14.99
I couldn't even finish this book. Rather than focusing on how we have sinful hearts that should desire what God wants, it tries to get women to focus too much on ourselves. When I stand before the Lord one day, I want to have lived fully for Him, not for myself and my beauty. Too dangerous of a book focused on psychology instead of the Holy Scriptures and our Incredible Lord.