90. Breeder; movie review

 

 

BREEDER

Cert 18

107 mins

BBFC advice: Contains strong bloody violence, sexual violence, sexual threat, sex, nudity

It's a decade since the last of the Hostel and Saw movies and when the franchises came to an end my sentiment was 'good riddance'.

The only competitor in the torture porn market since then was the grotesque Human Centipede trilogy which last hit cinema screens in 2015.

So, while some might say that cinema has become more formulaic in recent years, we have at least been spared this grisly genre.

Until now.

Even according to its press blurb, Breeder is a "brutal modernist survival horror" but at least Jens Dahl's film does have an interesting premise.

Its focus is the quest for youth and vitality or even eternal life.

Reversing the ageing process is offered to high-end earners by a renowned health supplement company which is run by a ruthless scientist (Signe Egholm Olsen).

She develops her treatment by selecting and abducting young women, making them pregnant and using their babies’ DNA to work her magic.  

Mia (Sara Hjort Ditlevsen) is the wife of one of her keys investors (Anders Heinrichsen) and finds herself trapped, branded and tortured in a grisly underground facility where the scientist keeps her 'donors'.

They are at the mercy of the aptly named Dog (Morten Holst) and Pig (Jens Andersen) - sadists who degrade them in multiple different ways.

I was trying to decide which offended me more about The Breeder - its cruelty or misogyny.

Yes, there are many different types of beating and unspeakable acts against the women but Dahl also seems obsessed with breasts and the captives wear little else but flimsy hospital gowns and skimpy knickers.

I am afraid that by its end I feared that Breeder was aimed at people who get off on this type of material.

Indeed, I felt a bit grubby having watched it.

Its saving grace is the quality of the acting - I was inwardly desperate for the villains to receive comeuppance - and a basic storyline which could have been executed effectively without so much blood, gore and titillation.

Reasons to watch: This type of horror is unusual nowadays

Reasons to avoid: Gore and extreme violence

Laughs: None

Jumps: None

Vomit: Yes

Nudity: Yes

Overall rating: 4/10

Did you know? Humans have a maximum natural lifespan of only 38 years, according to researchers, who have discovered a way to estimate how long a species lives based on its DNA.  Scientists at Australia's national science agency have developed a genetic 'clock' computer model that they claim can accurately estimate how long different vertebrates are likely to survive - including both living and extinct species.

The final word. Jens Dahl: "I’m a self-confessed orthorexic and a body horror enthusiast – so a film about my life would be James Dean quarantined in a hospital room chopping off his own limbs to fight off a maybe real, maybe imagined disease eating away at his body." Love Horror

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