It is ironic that Torture Chamber contains the word I felt most in tune with while viewing torture. The new horror film from writer/director Dante Tomaselli (Satan's Playground) was so bad it was torturous to watch through 93 minutes. The film opens with our introduction to 13-year-old Jimmy (Carmen LoPorto). For reasons to be explained later, Jimmy's first appearance on screen has him bound in an animal cage. His face appears burned and scared making his blue eyes all that more piercing and ominous. A Catholic priest is present but Jimmy is possessed by an extreme evil and his powers lead to his escape. Jimmy then recruits an army of children who follow his instruction on a murderous rampage on teachers, doctors
.just about anyone who ever looked at Jimmy in his past. The victims are dragged to an abandoned hideout where they are tortured until death. The above synopsis may sound like a film full of fun, blood and satanic overtones, but Torture Chamber is handled so ineptly that you can't help but think that being a victim of Jimmy would be less painful than trying to squeeze any drip of entertainment value out of Tomaselli's effort. Most of the faults can be found in the screenplay and the unmotivated actors that were hired to play out Tomasell's script. None of the cast comes out smelling like roses but its Soprano's star Vincent Pastore who has the most egg on his face as Dr. Fiore. The actor says his lines as if he was acting in a high school play without the benefit of a rehearsal. Most of his dialogue sounded as if he was just winging it forced and awkward. It's been a long time since I have been embarrassed for an actor involved with a paying project, but poor Pastore was in my prayers after screening. When it comes to the horror genre, you can sometimes mask bad acting, a bad script and any misdirection if you have the gore to help you overlook the faults. Not here. Torture Chamber's gore is ridiculously bad. Hardly any blood. Hardly any ingenuity when it comes to the ritual killings. Hardly any fun. All this makes Torture Chamber one of the worst films of the year. A zero out of five stars. That's not to say that we won't have interest to see Tomaselli's next effort, but this one needs to be put in a plastic bag with spray paint fumes and burned.
