By Melissa Antoinette Garza
The movie opens with our main character Natalie (Danielle Adams) gagged and bound to a chair in a fairly empty room decorated only with a white bookcase that has very little upon it and dirty cabinets. Everything within the small confines has a purple hue as if the main light has a party bulb in it.
Within moments, a woman enters wearing a bright white wig, a gas mask, a leather black and red dress, fishnet stockings and high heeled boots.
Natalie not knowing why she is being held tries to reason with her captor. She tells the gas mask queen that she has no money and she doesn’t know anyone with money therefore ransom is out of the question. She then begins to question why she was chosen and why she is there. This is the only moment when Natalie shows fear.
A man’s voice begins demanding answers from her from the opposite side of an intercom. The duo’s conversation is what the majority of the movie is and the questions vary from mundane to odd. For example, the intercom man brings up the fact that Natalie’s a good bartender and then in the next breath questions whether she’s a domestic terrorist.
The film is shot really well. Colors were most certainly used to stir the audience. Everything from the pristine pure white towel and the white wig to the purple hue, the red dress and fishnets are utilized in different ways to invoke emotion. There are levels of unease that the production successfully creates. It would have worked better had the reactions of those involved, especially the lead, worked with the shots rather than opposing them.
For example, during much of the movie Natalie is sarcastic, when she should have been petrified. She had an attitude that was seemingly unjustified. Even when people who she supposedly cares about are tortured, she’s has a tone of not caring. As she was tied to a chair with zero means of protecting those she cared about or even self-preservation, her “strength” is just bizarre. Fear should really be her only emotion. That isn’t to say she couldn’t formulate a plan, but at times Natalie not only seems unafraid, she seems disinterested and annoyed by it all. It was just the wrong reaction for what she was enduring. I’ve said it before, if the characters are unafraid, the viewers will be as well.
Even when they bring in her sister Victoria (Natalie Victoria), there really isn’t any heart or connection on Natalie’s side of it. There is a moment when she tries to soothe her sister, but it’s done in such a cold manner.
The end does have a twist that though semi-explains some of her reactions, doesn’t do much for the overall production.
To be fair, I’m not a fan of what is commonly known as the torture-porn genre. I don’t like The Saw series, Hostel, etc. If there is more than just that side of it, like in The Cube films or in the movie Tortured where revenge is sought after the death of a couple’s child, the movies can have promise. I think in a way, this film desperately tried to fall into the latter category with certain sub-plots, but there wasn’t enough reasoning by the character to actually accomplish this.
Overall, I think the film could have packed a punch if handled in a different manner. If the lead didn’t act like a sociopath from the near beginning, one could have identified more with her. If there were times when the lead was in control or seemingly in control and made some sort of selfless gesture, there would have been at least a small bond between her and the audience.
Also, this may have done much better as a short. For a film that’s an hour and a half long, there’s so much back and forth between Natalie and her captor that it gets redundant. If this had been 30 minutes, it would have been far more effective and the dialogue between the two would have been far better paced.
I am curious to see what the writer/director Eric Williford does in the future as I see elements within the production that were really good as far as certain shots, especially the close-ups with Natalie which were the only moments that any suspense was generated.
Overall, I have seen far worse out of the low-budget world and fans of the Saw series may see this in an entire different light. I saw an attempt at something really good that unfortunately couldn’t come together completley.
To Rent or Buy a Video On Demand copy: http://vimeo.com/ondemand/natsloselose
Scared Stiff Rating: 4.5/10
