A little boy is abducted from his home by a crazy guy in a creepy van. It's not just any normal boy but one that suffers from a condition that causes him to not feel any physical pain.
Five years later, we find the boy in some dark cellar witnessing girls being tortured and killed. The kidnapper is trying to train him. The boy should be suited for this work since presumably his condition should make him fearless. He appears to be anything but fearless.
Meanwhile, the lovely Allison arrives from Chicago to live with her uncle, aunt and little cousin. Her parents died from an accident and the uncle promised the dad to take care of her if anything happened to him. She's of course not at all happy to end up somewhere out in the country in Pennsylvania. She runs into some kid with an alcoholic dad in a wheelchair. They become closer but the uncle is trying to keep them apart. On her morning runs she sees a boy in an abandoned building. It's a former meat-packaging plant. One day she decides to follow him into the building and she's taken by the crazy guy.
The uncle and boyfriend go looking for her but run into the crazy guy. He, by the way, has conversations with and visions about someone with a cow skull who presumably makes demands of the crazy guy and to appease him he kills and tortures all these girls over the years. There's also some pseudo-religious talk of redemption and the such. Allison's fate will provide a neat little twist.
Bereavement is a competently made horror flick that benefits from the acting skills of the entire cast and the beauty of Daddario. It has some original ideas but it doesn't do enough with them. The worst part of the movie was how dark most of it was filmed. Of course the key parts have to take place at night, how could it possibly be otherwise? And the killings take place in a cellar with no light and the crazy guy doesn't seem to be in the least troubled by the fact that he can't see anything. And neither can we. If you're going to bother doing a torture horror flick, why the sudden reluctance to show the bloody parts? The killer is also a bit too crazy and little is explained about him. Of course he keeps a book with newspaper clippings of his work. It's time for younger filmmakers to dispose of all this lame predictable stuff. More emphasis should have been placed on the development of the boy as well and his relationship with the crazy guy.
Five years later, we find the boy in some dark cellar witnessing girls being tortured and killed. The kidnapper is trying to train him. The boy should be suited for this work since presumably his condition should make him fearless. He appears to be anything but fearless.
Meanwhile, the lovely Allison arrives from Chicago to live with her uncle, aunt and little cousin. Her parents died from an accident and the uncle promised the dad to take care of her if anything happened to him. She's of course not at all happy to end up somewhere out in the country in Pennsylvania. She runs into some kid with an alcoholic dad in a wheelchair. They become closer but the uncle is trying to keep them apart. On her morning runs she sees a boy in an abandoned building. It's a former meat-packaging plant. One day she decides to follow him into the building and she's taken by the crazy guy.
The uncle and boyfriend go looking for her but run into the crazy guy. He, by the way, has conversations with and visions about someone with a cow skull who presumably makes demands of the crazy guy and to appease him he kills and tortures all these girls over the years. There's also some pseudo-religious talk of redemption and the such. Allison's fate will provide a neat little twist.
Bereavement is a competently made horror flick that benefits from the acting skills of the entire cast and the beauty of Daddario. It has some original ideas but it doesn't do enough with them. The worst part of the movie was how dark most of it was filmed. Of course the key parts have to take place at night, how could it possibly be otherwise? And the killings take place in a cellar with no light and the crazy guy doesn't seem to be in the least troubled by the fact that he can't see anything. And neither can we. If you're going to bother doing a torture horror flick, why the sudden reluctance to show the bloody parts? The killer is also a bit too crazy and little is explained about him. Of course he keeps a book with newspaper clippings of his work. It's time for younger filmmakers to dispose of all this lame predictable stuff. More emphasis should have been placed on the development of the boy as well and his relationship with the crazy guy.