Customer Reviews

Bane

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I saw this in a little back banquet hall in Orlando Florida at last year's Screamfest. I really had no expectations, I was just tired of fighting the crowds to meet all the celebrities so I stopped in to see this movie.
First off I have to say the production is really poor. It feels almost like a college made movie, but the atmosphere completely makes up for it. The movie made me feel claustrophobic and dirty in a way I cannot really sum up in words. The gore is there in spades and the tension remains high throughout. You really never have much of an idea of what is going on, only that four girls are in this room trapped and a bloodthirsty Dr. comes in randomly and murders the girls at a certain time. I cannot say much more because it ruin it but I do recommend this movie to people who are fans of something NEW in the genre. Don't expect a hollywood production, no expect a scare a minute movie. It's a slow burner that eventually pays off and has some of the most haunting imagery I have seen in a long time.

I am very happy this is finally getting a DVD release.

This is a gem of a movie!! A totally British film that shows full respect to some of the finest from the horror genera and isn't afraid to tip it's hat to some all time classic horror / Sci-Fi movies of the past. It's one part Slasher, one part Sci-Fi and the story carries the underpinning of a psychological thriller...
Four women wake up in a 'testing lab' which must be one of the bleakest sets every used within a movie, and as a viewer you don't escape that feeling of claustrophobia as they struggle to come to terms with what's going on, or what is going to happen... The film carries the story fantastically, dropping the viewer small bits of information until dropping in a great twist towards the end throwing the viewer off guard, and changing your perception of some of the key characters.
All the women actors do an amazing job in this movie, this is due to the fact there is little distraction away from their predicament on screen, and they each convince the viewer of each characters personality, (although none of them know who they are / were) but the sense of who they are in their current situation is portrayed in the finest way I've seen in any movie in some time.

Great stuff!!

Bane (James Eaves, 2008)

James Eaves has, to date, directed five feature films. Of them, Bane has the second-highest IMDB rating, sitting currently at 3.3. (His first feature, the straight-to-video Sanitarium, edges it out at 3.4 for the top-rated Eaves flick.) I haven't seen any of his other movies, but if this is the second-best of the lot by a tenth of a point, then I'm pretty sure I don't need to. Bane is film that starts off terrible and only gets worse from there.

Four women--Katherine (Sparkle's Sophia Dawnay), Jane (Horrible Histories' Lisa Devlin), Natasha (Eaves regular Tina Barnes), and Elaine (Sylvia Robson in her screen debut)--awake in a room with electrified bars and plastic sheeting for walls. None has any memory, they only know their names by plastic armbands. Soon after awakening, each is taken in turn for an interview with Dr. Murdoch (Demonsoul's Daniel Jordan) and his right-hand man, a seeming combination of bouncer and torturer (Jonathan Sidgwick, who previously worked with Eaves on The Witches Hammer). They try to figure out their situation for a while, then Elaine is suddenly and mysteriously attacked by a guy in a doctor's mask (we never do find out who this is, but I'm getting ahead of myself) who seems to have superhuman speed and strength. When he gets through with her, she has a number carved into her thigh. Jane, who witnessed the attack, tries to figure out what it all means, while the other two scoff. There's more to it than this (one major plot point appears halfway through the film), but I can't get into it without major spoilers. It ain't worth thinking about anyway.

I was willing to buy this, kinda-sorta, and consider it just another worthless piece of bad filmmaking until we got to that plot point I mentioned above. The movie goes from slow, boring, and rather monotonous to ludicrous in an instant. It actually plateaus at that level of idiocy for the next forty-five minutes or so, and we go back to the whole "mysterious serial killer flick meets women in prison flick" vibe. And then comes the big climactic explanation scene. And oh, lord. It's hilarious. It's bad enough when you have to have a scene in your movie where Poirot gathers everyone in the drawing room and explains how whodunit didit. When that scene lasts a quarter-hour and still leaves gaping plot holes (like the identity of the psychotic doctor, who judging by his makeup in one scene may actually be undead, though this is never explained at all), you've gone beyond any bounds I'm willing to stretch in the fine art of blowing the ending of your movie. Way, way beyond.

Half a star because the leads are pretty darned cute, and cute in a non-Hollywood-cardboard-cutout sort of way; Dawnay and Barnes do the whole buff-but-femme thing, Robson is the most traditionally cute of the bunch (but would likely have been accorded "raving beauty" status more in the seventies than today), and Devlin is nerdgirl, with frizzy hair and glasses and please please please Hollywood cast her in a romantic lead somewhere. She's not the world's greatest actress (but really, the pinnacle of rom-com acting these days is... Gerard Butler?), but yeah. Nerd-hot. ½

See the entire review, film stills, and director's bio here:
[...]

Despite being a low-budget Indie film, Bane doesn't have the feel of one. This film comes across the screen as professionally as though it were right out of Hollywood. Bane got my attention immediately because it begins with action, and maintains a high level of suspense throughout its 120-minute run time. And even better, it gives nothing away at first so it is a very absorbing and horrific mystery.

In some ways, this film resembles a cross between Saw and A Clockwork Orange, but only superficially. In reality, Bane is its own film; original, unique, and irresistible. This film dedicates itself to the true meaning of horror....fear. It has a combination of surreal and real horror.

Bane begins with four women who are brought into some sort of hospital/bunker and are all given injections that strip them of all memory. The only way they even know who they are is by a wristband that has their name printed on it. The women are locked in a menacing-looking room by themselves (similar to Saw but without the shackles). No clues are given the to viewer as to why this is occurring, but I was sucked into the mystery very willingly.

Then at night, an intruder-surgeon sneaks into the room to mark a number on the women. I am under the impression that all of the women must have been drugged at night which is why they didn't wake up, because the surgeon didn't exactly use a felt pen to mark the number. He carved it into the women's skin. The number turns out to be the time that the women are scheduled to die. The large and noisy clock on the wall adds to the tension.

About half-way through, Bane takes a surprising twist and moves from horror into sci-fi. This twist is effective to explain the reasons why these four women were chosen for the experiments and leads to a very unexpected and satisfying ending.

The acting from all characters is superb. Dr. Murdock, the scientist/doctor (played by Daniel Jordan), is effectively creepy and scary. He is very convincing in his role as someone to be feared while he performs experiments on his "test" subjects. And the women are forced to watch horrible things (hence the similarity to A Clockwork Orange) while Dr. Murdock monitors their brain waves.

Despite the fine acting of Jordan, it is the women in Bane who steal the show. There are four: Katherine (played by Sophia Dawnay), Natasha (played by Tina Barnes), Jane (played by Lisa Devlin), and Elaine (played by Sylvia Robson). Each woman has her own personality, her own strengths and weaknesses. All four women play their roles with incredible talent. There are actors in Hollywood today who are lesser talents, but who star in block-buster movies. I am scratching my head as to why all four of the women in Bane are not incredibly famous, because they should be.

Katherine is the level-headed one, Jane is the brainy one, Natasha is the angry one, and then we have poor Elaine who is the timid, fearful one who falls apart. The character development in Bane is well done, and all of the women add something important to the film. Robson's role as Elaine is especially noteworthy, because I found myself not liking her character, and that means she has the most convincing portrayal of all because I felt like reaching into the TV and slapping her.

Another noteworthy (pun intended) thing worth mentioning is the musical score. Music by Ronnie Doyle, Dan Cullen, and Deryn Cullen rev up the tension by being placed into the film at just the right moments.

Bane certainly has its share of gore, and lots of bloodshed. The director sent me a small coloring book along with the DVD, and it contained one single crayon: the color red.

I have to wonder if there is a political statement in this film about women being dominated and brutalized by men. Or perhaps that sort of thing is has become common in horror films in general. Still, I think that Bane avoids the stereotype because except for Elaine, the female characters in this film are strong women, especially Katherine. So what begins as brutality against four women ends with one of the women fighting back and winning, even if that victory doesn't bring her happiness.

All in all, Bane has it all: great character development, a mystery which gets solved, lots of exciting tension and suspense, and a very unexpected ending that I didn't see coming.

I have seen other reviews of Bane that are not nearly as enthusiastic about this film as I am. Some reviewers don't like this film at all. But in all honesty, I like it a lot, and I mean a real lot. I feel it works on every level. In fact, Bane won "Best Feature Film" at the Shriekfest Film Festival the year before it went into its DVD format.

Either way, I encourage you to see this film to decide for yourself.

Jeani Rector, Editor
The Horror Zine
[...]

Ok...I dont know if the two previous reviews were from people who financed this movie, but I'll give you a straight-up honest review from a horror afficiando.
Four women wake up in a warehouse-looking place with plastic and electrified wires as the walls. They are told that they are part of an experiment, and dont have any memories, blah blah...they are then one by one, cut with a "time" of death--that some dirty, nonsensical maniac comes to kill them. For no reason.
This movie doesnt make sense. Its poorly acted, edited, the plot-holes are canyon deep, and the gore is cheesy. Orange blood? They never explain WHY they kill the women, who this stupid dirty, bandaged murder-doctor is, or where they are. I stuck with it to at least try to understand the ending--which didnt make any sense either. Completely anti-climatic. You dont care if these women live or die, or even half-way into the movie, why they are there. I gave it one star, cuz I've seen far worse, and they "tried" on the effects, but thats all I can do. I regret paying $3 for it. Watch at your own risk--risk to your wallet. And no, there's no torture porn.

Yes, this is a sordid piece of torture porn.

I won't rehash the plot much, as other reviewers have done so.

BANE was marketed as "science fiction." I say this, because I saw it playing on a sci-fi cable channel. I don't know how much of BANE they censored, because I'd earlier seen the film on DVD, and didn't watch it on that sci-fi channel.

But it's a pretty bloody film, so they must have censored some of it.

One reviewer praised BANE for not relying on nudity. Well, no. While BANE is not quite hardcore porn, there's much softcore porn, including shower scenes.

BANE is torture porn. Four women wake up in a futuristic prison, and are periodically taken off to be tortured and/or killed. There's also a "surprise twist" ending, where we learn the details of this post-apocalyptic world, and why the women are in prison. This revelation is not especially interesting, and certainly not "satisfying" as one reviewer put it.

BANE tries to compensate for its misogyny by making the surviving women turn out to be a tough, Lara Croft type super-heroine. Seems she too can kill with gusto.

So BANE is essentially about a bunch of women who are mercilessly tortured and killed for no good reason, balanced by one of the women getting in some bloody-thirsty jabs as well.

Science fiction, like horror, benefits from a "sense of wonder." THE RING, THE GRUDGE, and JEEPERS CREEPERS -- even HALLOWEEN -- all had a "sense of wonder," in that the protagonists were confronted with dark powers greater than themselves. (People forget that Myers's indestructibility was shocking and surprising in 1978, before indestructible slashers became a cliché.)

BANE has no "sense of wonder." Nor does its "suspense" rely on mysterious, intriguing characters (e.g. PSYCHO). Instead, BANE is sordid torture porn, with a (sorta) sordid torture revenge ending.

Brain-dead trash.

If you're going to make a piece of crap like this a little skin would have been nice just to keep the viewer's interest. It seems like someone found a warehouse or sound stage and made some fake walls out of fencing and bed sheets. The story although weak had you wondering what the heck are we watching and why are we still watching it? I will give any movie a chance, but this one really needs to be burnt and buried. If you really feel like you need to watch it, rent first.