Tormented (2009)

A teenage boy commits suicide after being the victim of cruel bullies . A few days later after his funeral mishaps start striking his schoolmates . Are these in retaliation for the boys suicide ? After all the dead stay dead or do they ?After reading the premise I thought this film was going to be THEATRE OF BLOOD the 1973 black comedy starring Vincent Price crossed with the 2003 Gus Van Sant drama ELEPHANT . Instinctively you feel this is how the film should have been developed . It deals with the themes of bullying and revenge subjects that should be treated with total respect . Instead we get a film that doesn't seem to be able to make up its mind what it's trying to do as in often the case in British cinema This extends to the whole tone of the film . It could certainly be described as Anti-ELEPHANT but that's because director Jon Wright goes out of his way to show the audience that he's been to film school and knows all about rapid cross cutting edits and ramping . If the audience are in danger of getting bored then he inserts what is effectively a pop video montage . To be blunt less would have been much more and he could have developed the story much better by being less frenetic with the editing and camera work . I take it the intended market for TORMENTED was angst ridden teenagers but I like to credit the youth of today , yesterday and tomorrow with more intelligence . If they want a pop video there's MTV and I'm speculating if they visit the cinema they want to see a story told in the language of cinema same as everyone else does On the subject of youth the cast are ... well how can I put it . You know when you watch a Tom Cruise movie and he's playing a shallow self centered character and he doesn't pull it off because he's perhaps much to nice to manage ? That's the exact same impression I got with the cast here . No doubt they were fantastic company and a pleasure to work with and exemplary role models for teenagers everywhere but at portraying cruel , sadistic foul mouthed bullies intent on making their peers life hell they never convince for a moment . Compare them to the cast of say SCUM and you'll notice a big difference TORMENTED is a rather mediocre film . One should always applaud a film from Britain that isn't ashamed to be a commercial hit and a film trying to mix horror with humour and important topics can only be congratulated but TORMENTED doesn't really manage to do anything very well . I wanted to like it but didn't much

Written by Stephen Prentice and directed by Jon Wright, Tormented is the classic teen slash horror film about bullying, and the effects bullying can have on different types of people. The film was very predictable, and highly unbelievable, mainly due to the parents not showing an interest in the killings, and the school remaining open even though there are murders occurring.The film starts with a young girl, Justine, being led out of a school by police, and looks distraught. The opening left me intrigued as to why, so it immediately grabs the audience's attention at the beginning. The film then goes on to reveal why the girl was being ushered out of the school, which displays nonlinear narrative. We learn that a young boy, Darren Mullet, has recently committed suicide due to being bullied so badly, and we get an insight into the bullies lives, seeing what they do on a day to day basis and who else they bully. He comes back to life, and sets out on killing everyone who bullied him. He does this with success, but leaves Justine alive, resulting in her being blamed for the murders.The film held all the qualities a typical teen slash horror film includes, but is highly unbelievable. The main reason I thought it wasn't that believable was because no adults knew about the killings, no teachers, no parents, nobody. That's the main reason why I thought it wasn't a great film. Also, the school seemed to be empty whenever a killing was taking place, which also seems very unbelievable However, the overall message of the film was clear, that bullying can affect everyone, and it does. The plot was constant throughout, and the story was very clear.. That fact that it made an income of £284,500 approx. but cost £700,000 to make, shows the lack of success it had in the box offices. The actors were very good, however, and portrayed the characters they were playing very well. Not only was it a horror film, but it held comedy aspects as well, which could grip the audience even further. It's definitely not for the faint hearted, as the killings are very gruesome, but it's a funny film nonetheless.

Being a fairly low budget film I thought it did quite a good job and had the potential to be quite successful. Some of the deaths were very creative and made you want to look away due to the gore of it. It was typical overweight, asthmatic school boy that was being bullied and it also makes the more popular people who might bully people think about it before they do it again if the movie actually got to them. I also liked the music soundtrack and thought that it was well thought into. It appeals more to people that are between the ages of 15+ which is a lot of variety and was directed very well and also had some good comedic moments.The lack of an imaginative story line let the film down and I felt like it had the cliché film storyline. Some of the acting wasn't very convincing and the film was trying to be serious at some points but you couldn't help but laugh at it, for example when Darren sat on Sophie with his swimming goggles on and just looked at her as she drowned was just too funny to be took seriously and I was laughing at it definitely more than I should have been. It also gets a bit silly when he sends texts messages at the start. Even after the deaths of Sophie in the pool and Marcus getting his head put through a spike the school stays open which is very strange to me.Overall I think the film was certainly not rubbish but I wouldn't say I liked it enough to want to go out and buy it on DVD or go out of my to see it when it on television or on my computer. The twist at the end of the story was clever because he didn't kill Justine, he framed her. Also the story was non-linear which added a spark of interest because you want to know what happened to get to that stage in the story. I would give it a good word if someone asked me about it and I would recommend it to some people that I thought would like it.7/10

An average film and had a good non-linear narrative about a boy committing suicide and then coming back to kill the teens that bullied him. This is a good message to send out as this is showing that bullying can result in severe consequences such as a boy killing himself. I also liked the twist at the end how the girl got framed for all the murders. However, I didn't like the way they represented the state of British schools as they were showing that teachers were useless and didn't treat certain children right and also shown a very stereotypical view on teens and how they are obsessed with getting drunk and sex and how they always are swearing every sentence. Also the unrealistic way of the deaths as they were very bizarre and unbelievable. Overall the film was average had its good points and wasn't predictable for the audience to guess what was going to happen next. I feel that this film couldn't be watched more than once. They tried to blend comedy and horror together however they didn't really capture the horror as I don't feel any point of the film is scary or even make you jump.