I just finished watching an amazing and very well-acted 2012 American psychological thriller-slasher film by Jennifer Lynch called "Chained". This film is about a young 9 year old boy named Tim (Evan Bird) who was encouraged by his father, Brad (Jake Weber), to take a cab home from the cinema with his mother, Sarah (Julia Ormond), instead of a bus. After the show, Sarah and Tim took the cab but the cab driver, Bob (Vincent D'Onofrio), abducts them into his house instead of taking them to their house. Bob murders Sarah and forces Tim to live with him by practically making him his slave. Bob also renames Tim "Rabbit". Rabbit was forced to do various chores for Bob such as cleaning the house and eating Bob's left-over foods. After Rabbit tried to run away one day, Bob put a chain around his ankle so that he would not escape. It is quickly revealed that Bob is a serial killer and Rabbit was forced many times to watch Bob rape and murder women after women in his house. It is also revealed that Bob was severely abused and raped by his own father, who was also a murderer.
9 years later, Rabbit (Eamon Farren) is still living as Bob's slave and even though Bob continues murdering random women, Rabbit still keeps his innocence and still believes murder is wrong. One day, Bob tells Rabbit that he wants him to be educated and smart so he gives him a book about human anatomy. However, the trick is that Bob now wants Rabbit to be a rapist and a murder as well. He brings Rabbit a high school yearbook and forces him to pick a girl he finds attractive to lose his virginity to and to be his first victim. Forcefully, Rabbit chooses a girl named Angie (Conor Leslie).
Bob kidnaps Angie and puts her in a room. He grabs Rabbit into the room, gives him a knife, and tells him to rape and kill her. Bob then shuts the door leaving both of them in the room. Rabbit, being well-versed in human anatomy now, stabs Angie but stabs her in an area where she won't die. She plays dead and Rabbit puts her in the basement. He then comes out of the room filled with blood and Bob is proud of him.
Now that Rabbit has supposedly killed someone, Bob allows him to leave the house. Together, they take Bob's cab and Bob starts looking for his next female victim, this time asking which one Rabbit prefers. Rabbit tells Bob that he doesn't want to kill anyone and after Bob notices that Rabbit wrote "help" on the outside of the cab's door, he gets angry and they end up going home. Without Rabbit's knowledge, Bob told Rabbit that he secretly taped his and Angie's room incident but he hasn't watched it yet. Rabbit gets scared since he didn't actually kill her so he told Bob the truth. Bob gets angry, drives home quickly, and goes to the basement to kill Angie, who is still alive. Thankfully, Rabbit barges in, kills Bob, and both him and Angie are finally free.
The first thing Rabbit does is drive Bob's cab to his original home to see his dad, Brad. Brad opens the door and Rabbit sees that he's happily married to his new wife, Marie (Gina Philips) and has a young son with her. Rabbit is angry seeing his father have a puppy in the house since a puppy is something Rabbit always wanted but his father denied him. Rabbit reveals a letter he found at Bob's apartment. In the letter, it is revealed that Bob is actually Rabbit's uncle and Brad's brother...and Brad actually paid Bob to arrange the abduction and get rid of both Sarah and Tim. Brad gets angry, starts beating Marie, and in self-defense, Rabbit smashes Brad's head with a glass killing him. Marie asks Rabbit to quickly leave and calls the cops claiming burglars have killed her husband. Rabbit then drives Bob's cab back to Bob's house as it's the only place he could hide for now.
I personally thought this film was very gritty, dark, deep, depressing, emotional, and very psychological. It is definitely one of my favorite so-called horror movies now. "Chained" is very well-written and the acting is top notch. I especially thought the actor who played the teenage Rabbit, Eamon Farren, was the best actor in this and was incredibly believable in his role as a traumatized, scared child. Though, admittedly, Vincent D'Onofrio played the creepy villain just as good. I am not very familiar with Jennifer Lynch aside from the fact that she is David Lynch's daughter but with a film like this one, I definitely want to see more from her. She did a wonderful job with this! I give this a 9/10.
