Dungeon Girl (2008)

What a relief! I watched this on fear.net, so it was free.I echo the sentiments of virtually every reviewer. This movie promised to be interesting by pretending to be based on the real case in Germany where the man held his daughter captive, molesting and even impregnating her multiple times.This movie has NOTHING like the news story.Long story, short....nothing happens in this movie. Yes, the guy kidnaps a girl and keeps her in his "house"? Apart from the rather mundane activities like cooking, playing guitar and reading a bible...there is no activities that contribute to the "plot"!!?? Annoying narration that explains nothing of the motivations by the protagonists. This makes Eraserhead look transparent! An absolute mess! It is incomprehensible how this ever got made or distributed.

Dungeon Girl (2008)** (out of 4) My never ending parade of German director Ulli Lommel's "real life" movies continues with this one, which steps away from the horror genre and enters the drama category. This one tells a story that happened in Austria as a young girl was kidnapped and held hostage by a man for nearly six years. The entire running time centers on voiceovers as the girl tells her feelings for her parents, her life before the abduction and for her kidnapper known only as The Stranger. Again, I've seen all of Lommel's "real life" movies that have been released so far and this one here took me by a pleasant surprise. Not that I'd ever sit through the thing again but at least Lommel tried something different and didn't just deliver the same old garbage. I think what really helps this film is Wendi Jean Linn as the girl and Gunther Ziegler as The Stranger. We really don't get to see them "act" since most of the film is structured around voiceovers but this is beneficial since the majority of Lommel's recent films have been even worse due to the bad acting. Here, they at least look the parts well and the narration by Gwen Trevathan is really good. The film is way too slow and too much stuff is repeated for it to be considered a marginally good film. I'm really not sure what Lommel's obsession is with having a character look into the camera, ask questions and then constantly reuse this footage. Also, the running time of 81 minutes is the norm for his recent films but he might want to consider cutting them down to a hour or less. This is how "B" and "Z" movies were back in the day so he might want to revisit that. With that said, this is still a weak film but it's a lot better than anything the director's have given us over the past decade but then again, that's not saying too much.

I loved Ulli Lommel's early eighties horror films The Boogeyman and The Devonsville Terror. They were great and Tenderness Of The Wolves was at least a real movie with a plot.This new spate of work is the absolute pits. Remembering the good times, I keep coming back for more punishment, lured by the lurid box art and the promise of explicit content. I keep thinking that maybe the next movie will be better but they only get worse.Dungeon Girl is the worst one yet. Absolute in its despicable worthlessness, it wallows in its own boredom. Nearly the whole film takes place in a small house where the two characters look at each other and do almost nothing.I know that there are lovers of bad movies out there that read the horrible reviews and want to see something based on what they read. I must warn you that this isn't one of those movies that are so bad they're good, unless you want very badly to see a middle aged man masturbate. This really is so bad it's awful! I don't say the word unwatchable very often.You'll probably not listen.

..Then DO NOT watch this movie. I was seriously disappointed in this, even though I had no expectations. It seemed to me as an 81 minute long intro to what looked like a really boring documentary. The narration voice was weak as probably intended, but it really got on my nerves after 3 minutes. You are asked so many questions by the narrator, but you NEVER seem to find the answer in this film.The cover claimed to have based this movie on a true story: the story of Natascha Kampusch. The only similarities are the captivity for 8 years and the hints of Stockholm syndrome.Basically, you get 81 minutes of recurring clips of the captivator masturbating using a doll, playing guitar, watching Christian TV, reading and cooking. Our main character sits still most of the time, looking like she is seriously ill, even though we learn that she 'loves' her captivator.All I can say about this movie, besides what's already been said is, that the acting and chemistry was extremely bad, camera, graphics and everything you see is not beautiful, artistic or raw in any way, but the 'just filmed it with that cam I bought in the supermarket'-way.I warn you, this movie will drive you even more nuts than the main character already is.