Caged (2010)

What could be worse than being cut open and having your internal organs removed while you're still alive? Well, in Caged, which I saw with English subtitles, it takes it to an extreme.When a French medical team ends up abducted and locked up, one of them, Samir, is dragged away, and it turns out that the team has been abducted for illegal organ harvesting.This type of plot has been used countless times, but in most movies organ harvesting is never so graphic. Caged shows it in great detail, making it a truly disturbing and scary movie to view, which was their intention, and they pulled it off extremely well. The acting wasn't very good and the soundtrack was pretty boring, but if you want to see a scary movie, look no further than this.

So Caged might not fit up there with the other French greats quite so much due to its unoriginal set-up which we've all seen before. However this has a twist because it's French! The French tend to do everything right what the Americans do wrong. Caged undeniably has the similar set-up and themes to mediocre films like Turistas or Hostel (although Hostel is better than Turistas) but it manages to keep things incredibly tense and have characters that you can care for so that you actually care about the film itself.Right from the opening you know that Caged is going to be a superior horror as it features a childhood flashback of the main character. American slasher-type horror films probably wouldn't bother doing this, but it really does help us to get more in-depth into the character so we can care about her more. Furthermore it helps that the victims aren't annoying/stupid teenagers or twenty-somethings. They're mature adults who you can respect and it's a feature that a lot of slasher films forget to do. I liked all of the main victims and I was sad to see them go because it was clear that they had a strong bond with each other.I also liked how Caged didn't take an awful long time to get into the action. We have just the right time to build up the characters and then we can just sit on the edge of our seat for the rest of it as we see them become crushed! I don't mean that in a vindictive way (nasty, vindictive and rude, rude, rude!) just in the slasher formula way. In case you don't know the characters get kidnapped by foreigners and are taken to a Martyrs-like prison (though less high-tech) where they await there turn to the operating table. There's a great claustrophobic atmosphere as we're not allowed to see the light of day, just like they aren't. There's a sense of entrapment and you can't help but root for them to break free.You might think that watching a film where people are caged for the majority would be boring but it's not. The directing and acting are lively enough to keep you focused and become involved with the characters. The film's second-half (I don't want to spoil anything) is also a complete thrill ride! It's highly suspenseful and incredibly tense. I was shouting at my TV and found myself becoming very involved in the narrative, even if it does seem familiar! There's also a fair amount of gore to enhance the entertainment value, and of course some nasty scenes are put in place which heightens our knowledge of how ballsy French films are.I also really liked the cinematography in Caged too. There were some great long shots of the corridor of cages and the film also had a great look to it which made it feel dirty and raw, which is what you want in a horror film. I also really liked the suspenseful directing which keeps you on your toes the whole way through (especially the second half). All in all, Caged is an unfairly over-looked horror film which oozes style and tension. It's far better than American offerings that generate more profit than this does (unfairly I might add!) Yes Caged might not be the most original horror film, but it's certainly one of the best of its kind and I can't urge you enough to go and seek out this solid tiny gem!

The fact that I have seen quite a few movies, not only with a similar story(line) as this one, does not help while watching it. The fact, that it tries to be earnest and thinks of itself as serious psycho-thriller add to the odd feeling that something has gone terribly wrong. It is neither as great as it thinks it is nor is it simple romp. It is somewhere in between.It tries hard to please to groups of people. The people who like to have a heart and mind to those types of movies, but also the people who like the horror and terror in that situation. Unfortunately the characters are not fleshed out enough (no pun intended) for this to happen. A little bit more of a back-story would have been helpful. But then again this might have been bad for those who were just waiting for the "juicy" parts.The matter that is being handled here, does deserve a better movie (imo). A shame that this movie does not handle it as it should

I am disappointed by this movie. The story begins rather in a good manner but everything begins predictable. The characters are convincing, the editing quite fairly made but, I repeat, you can feel the ending a thousand miles in advance. And there also too many improbabilities. Such as when the lead - Zoe Felix - kills the mad surgeon, or when the bomb explodes, in the forest, just between her and the dogs. The beasts are killed and Zoe Felix is not even wounded, not a scratch. Or, how the hell could any one find some body in the middle of a corn field?You can feel that the director scamped his work. The screenplay is dumb and needs more retouching.But it's a good time waster.