It's hard for French horror these days. Sure, they get a lot of funding, some of the best actors and technicians in the country and a wide release with good promotion. But if we leave those technical achievements aside, almost every film that came out after MARTYRS looked and felt like a bit of a let down. Maybe that is due to the quality of films like ILS, MARTYRS, FRONTIERS and INSIDE, but maybe it's also due to the one big problem the horror genre has suffered from for decades now: that of expectations.
A horror audience knows all great horror films of the last few years - at least those that are considered the recent classics. Hence, there are only two ways left to go - either you make a great film out of a plot constructed around clichés and well known genre-moments, or you come up with something completely new (you can also come up with something old and present it in a way it's never been presented before). CAPTIFS - or CAGED - settles for the former.
So here's our plot: a few nice doctors in the the Kosovo try to get from point a to point b. On the way, they are ambushed and taken into captivity. They try to figure out why the are held captive, until the scheme of the the kidnappers is unveiled. The rest of the film pretty much uses the same plot devices like most of those genre films (one in particular I don't want to spoil). So yeah, if you've seen this kind of film, you know what's coming.
However, CAPTIFS is quite well made. The highlights of the film are the first three minutes as well as a dream sequence, that prove that director Yann Gozlan is better at generating suspense than go for mindless horror territory that others have tread before him. If this is one of your first films of this kind, you will surely be amazed, due to the great actors, great cinematography and suspense in some scenes, but the film does leave a bit to be desired. However, for the aforementioned qualities of the film, it still holds up pretty well.
Rating - 7.5/10
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