RUPTURE

(director/writer: Steven Shainberg; screenwriter: Brian Nelson; cinematographer: Karim Hussain; editor: Michele Conroy; music: Nathan Larson; cast: Noomi Rapace (Renee Morgan), Michael Chiklis (Bald Man), Kerry Bishé (Dianne), Lesley Manville (Dr. Nyman), Peter Stormare (Terrence), Jonathan Potts (Blake), Percy Hines White (Evan), Ari Millen (Dr. Raxlen), Jean Yoon (Colette), Joel Labelle (Captive Man); Runtime: 100; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Steven Shainberg, Andrew Lazar, Andrea Iervolino, Monika Bacardi, Christina Weiss Lurie; AMBI Media Group 2016-US/Canada)

“An inane and unpleasant trashy B-movie sci-fi abduction-torture thriller.“

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

An inane and unpleasant trashy B-movie sci-fi abduction-torture thriller. Under the underwhelming direction of Steven Shainberg (“Secretary”/”Hit Me”) and a half-assed script by Shainberg and Brian Nelson. This Rupture misfire, the first film he has directed in 11 years, is a piece of crap.

Renee Morgan (Noomi Rapace)is a divorced woman residing in Kansas City, Missouri, raising by herself a rebellious teen son named Evan (Percy Hines White). One day after she lets us see she has a fear of spiders, she drops off the kid to her ex-husband for the week-end. On the road she’s given a flat by the bad guys and is abducted on the roadside by a number of thugs who gag her and take her in a truck to a secret lab. The creepy mad scientists present (Michael Chiklis, Peter Stormare, Kerry Bishé and Lesley Manville), members of a cult, are wearing binocular glasses and are insanely talking about genetic codes while subjecting her to a number of weird questions about her fear of spiders. There’s also a man captive (Joel Labelle) in another room, but she has difficulty communicating with him. We’re left figuring out the goofy plot by ourselves and try to figure out why she’s been taken. We soon find out she is the subject of a series of underground radical experiments because of her fear of spiders–the kidnapper’s wish “to rupture people’s genes and mutate them into advanced beings by making them face their worst fears.”

Now the flawed film unravels even further after it explains itself as crazily as a loony bird would. Thereby the intrigue dissipates into a clumsy and stupid psychological thriller that has the damsel-in-distress trying to escape and combat the ill-effects of the experiment before it’s too late.

REVIEWED ON 7/12/2018 GRADE: C-    https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/