CHAINED is another low budget serial killer movie that attempts to be all edgy and frightening by getting into the head of a killer. Inevitably it doesn't work very well, leaving this a bland disappointment lacking in vision and character. The best thing about it is the likable Vincent D'Onofrio, an actor who really shouldn't be wasting his talents in mindless torture porn films like this. The film sees D'Onofrio's killer taking on a disturbed young apprentice but there are some highly predictable twists in store which you'll see coming a mile off. It's unpleasant without being too graphic, and in the end the mindless screaming and killing bored me senseless.

The nine year-old Tim (Evan Bird) goes to the movie theater with his mother Sarah (Julia Ormond) and his father Brad Fittler (Jake Weber) tells Sarah to take a cab to go home. After the session, Sarah and Tim take the cab of Bob (Vincent D'Onofrio) that abducts and bring them to his isolated house. Bob kills Sarah and shackles and gives rules to Tim, nicknaming him "Rabbit". Along the years, the psychopath serial-killer Bob keeps killing women and Tim cleans the house and the blood, buries the women and eats Bob's leftover. When Tim (Eamon Farren) grows up, Bob decides to treat him as his son and unchains him, but Tim is reluctant to accept him. One day, Bob brings the gorgeous teenager Angie (Conor Leslie) expecting that Tim has sex with her and kills her. What will Tim do with Angie?

"Chained" is a disturbing, twisted and depressing loss of innocence of a boy kidnapped by a sadistic and deranged serial-killer and with a surprising plot point in the end. Vincent D'Onofrio is a scary psychopath with a twisted mind. The fate of Angie is omitted in the movie and this is the weakest part of the cruel plot that makes an ambiguous conclusion. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Acorrentados" ("Chained")

CHAINED is an excellent psychological horror movie, most of which is set in a nondescript rural home of Bob, a cab driver who captures, tortures, kills and rapes his victims, then buries the bodies in his basement. At the beginning of the movie, we see him capture 9 year old Tim and his mother, killing Tim's mother and keeping Tim captive as his slave, with no hope of escape.

Many of us will remember Vincent D'Onofrio as Private Pyle in Stanley Kubrick's 1987 classic "Full Metal Jacket." While D'Onofrio has had a long career in both movies and television, his ability to capture odd and scary characters is unmatched. He does so here with completely delusional behavior and a speaking voice that suggests slight mental retardation.

As we see Tim grow to be a teenager, D'onofrio's Bob tries clumsily to be a father figure to Tim, claiming to want Tim to be educated so that he doesn't turn out to be a loser as an adult. The obvious disconnect here is that any teen, chained to indentured servitude for years, could not possibly avoid being messed up for life, should he ever escape his involuntary incarceration.

Bob eventually wants to pass his sick torch to Tim, encouraging TIm to pick a pretty girl to lose his virginity to, both sexually and homicidally. Bob's constant abuse, some physical but mostly mental and emotional, serves to break down any memories of a normal childhood that Tim ever had, establishing murder and necrophilia as the new normal.

Tim is forced to eventually make a choice, to attempt escape or to follow in Bob's footsteps. There are a couple of surprises at the end, enough to ensure the complete creepiness of the story from start to finish.