User reviews

Surfers head out to catch some waves and a power struggle unfolds on a sailing boat. That's the premise of this feature film, which would have benefited from some extra editing. Ben Oxenbould does a great job as your typical testosterone filled Aussie dickhead, who, much like the screenwriter of this movie, seems to be losing the plot quite often. Sam, the female lead who gets a kick out of manipulating people, seems to be equally creepy as Bull (Oxenbould) but the film only threads down this path very lightly. The other characters are pretty one dimensional and the focus stays on Bull, who's up there with other great on-screen sociopaths. The low budget can't be blamed for a missed Oscar opportunity but rather the way the story is presented to the viewer.

Recommended for that holiday trip with friends and foes.

A plot is simple.

Surfers went in open sea to enjoy waves while spending some time on a ship.

There is a sex-game here.

Lustful noise irritates the less advantaged on a ship naturally.

To restore a social justice by way and logic too often happened in a real life, strong male made advances to a willing female.

She refused to submit.

He insisted and actions followed.

A bit boring story of behavioural patterns different people exhibit in a space closed.

Couldn't watch last 20 minutes when everything becomes anti-climactic. Potentially good plot becomes implausible. Pity because setting and acting are good. Main problem is our credulity at group's incompetence or their pacifity when confronted with main character's villainy. I'd have loved to support this more as the actors do their best in a unique setting but the script let them down. Comparable to the much better Dead Calm.

This story has been done to death but as Aussie movies rarely disappoint I was sure we might have something interesting to watch but ohhhh how wrong I was.

For a start you can hardly hear or understand much of what is happening as the sound control is awful, I actually had to turn up the graphics equaliser voice section on my surround sound amp so that I might be able to make the vocals out a bit better but even so the mumbling acting was not something my amp was going to cure.

Boring story (nothing much happens not even a shark appears or anything of interest) with a dreadful "bad guy" who was about as badass as a toasted crumpet, lacklustre acting from all involved and a complete mess of a movie - Give this one a bodyswerve or you may have as boring an evening last night as I did!

"Caught Inside" (2010) is an Australian psychological thriller about a group of surfers who sail to a remote island paradise for vacation. A couple of women join the expedition at the last moment and a series of events turns the holiday into a torturous adventure.

What I liked about this film, aside from the professional fimmaking and paradisical locations (Maldives), was the realism of the story and characters. The film skirts the borders of the slasher genre and I'm sure it was tempting for the writers to have someone morph into Jason Voorhees, but they wisely resisted.

***SPOILER ALERT***

Someone complained about how unbelievable it was at one point when a group of four or five from the expedition "cowardly" put up with the psycho's tormenting antics when he doesn't even have a weapon. But this is where the film shines as a PSYCHOLOGICAL thriller. Bull, the psycho, had gained the upper hand by this point in the story. The others are literally afraid of him and fearing for their lives. They're also in shock since this was supposed to be a paradise surfing vacation. The blond guy with short hair tried to scrap with Bull a couple of times and was easily humbled, not to mention beat up. It's a mental thing. Bull is the king of the mountain at this juncture -- "king" by brute force and arrogance alone. One of the girls, Sam, is anticipating getting raped and who knows what else. The teen dude doesn't know what to do, since he was Bull's little buddy, but now he sees what a total psycho he is. So they're all afraid and considering their options. No doubt they're thinking of ganging up on him, but they simply don't have it in them at this moment, so they endure his tormenting antics. They're also waiting for the right opportunity when their chances of success are best.

I didn't find this unbelievable at all; in fact, I found it very realistic.

***END SPOILER***

If you like films like the excellent "Dead Calm" (1989), be sure to check out "Caught Inside." It's not as good, but it comes respectfully close.

By the way, the Australian accents are thick so I recommend using the subtitles.

The film runs 93 minutes.

GRADE: B+

Quite unrealistic that 4 unbound people couldn't figure out a way to jump one pretty much unarmed man.

Yes it's true. Almost everywhere, in every conceivable scenario, the "alpha" person either dominates naturally or gets frustrated if they can't. This scene plays itself out a billion times a day all over the world.

It's even true that sadism is a factor when the situation gets out of control. You will see this in Junior High and forever after. Add to the mixture jealous over a girl and the battle is on.

But I'm not sure you will enjoy watching it, without some other elements at play.

I'm not a fan of plots showcasing evil. It's like watching the aftermath of a gruesome accident on the freeway, instead of just looking straight ahead. Do you really want to do it?

Also, did anyone notice that the bully is way older than the rest? Doesn't he understand that that may contribute to why he isn't first choice?

The setting and photography are good. But there's not much going on here.

Predictable but good nonetheless. The 600 character minimum for this review is a bit much. I'm not one to comment on the creative aspects of the movie, just the entertainment value.

I watched this on Prime which doesn't offer captions. As a result, because of the thick accents I could only understand about 10% of what was said. Might as well have been in Chinese.

The male passengers other than the crazy guy were massive pussies. They had numerous chances to put a stop to the nonsense but didn't. The ladies were much more assertive.

The scenery was great, but I could have done without the fish market scenes at the beginning. Very disgusting.

Well acted, beautifully photographed movie with great characterization by Ben Oxenbould.

I saw this on the first public screening so there were cast and crew there and the mood in the room of the general public in attendance was very supportive which made it for a very enjoyable experience on the whole.

Though Ben Oxenbould's performance is the stand out for me, the rest of the cast are also incredibly good and deserve much praise. What I liked most about this film was the believability of the characters, even the villain is someone you can imagine existing (and in school days I'm sure some of us met one or two people who were destined to turn out like the villain!). I very much enjoyed how characters acted in a such realistic manner. One of the male characters is completely de-masculinised throughout the villains reign and unable to protect the other characters, or his girlfriend, which was quite innovative and just screamed of authenticity. Too many films are full of testosterone fuelled 5 minute fight scenes, where as this films fights were clumsy and awkward, as they would be in real life.

The 'hero' of the piece (I can't remember the names properly but the brown haired fit looking guy who starts a romance with Sam) is written very well in not being too tough either, he's masculine, and brave, but he's no Vin Diesel, he's just a human trapped in a desperate situation doing the best he can.

My only criticism is that perhaps it took too long to get to the meaty part of the film when the villain takes control of the boat. The last movie of this type I saw was Donkeypunch, and though that was good in a popcorn movie kinda way, 'Caught Inside' is ahead of a lot of thrillers is the completely believable behaviour and realistic and natural dialogue, which in turn makes for some quite edge of your seat moments.

As an indie Australian film the cast and crew have done incredibly well in pulling together this enjoyable and tense little film and I'd definitely be proud to see it go overseas and do the indie festival circuits.

The whole psychological thriller isn't really that, it's just some dude who acts like a complete a-hole.

The dialogue audio is terribly mixed too. There's lots of scenes with waves crashing and water everywhere of course, and it overpowers the dialogue because many of the characters don't enunciate their lines too.

I did like the ending though. It was simple but clever. The ending song during the credits was awful though.

Caught Inside is a taught psychological thriller set on a Surfing Safari in the Maldives with a thought provoking script that revolves around a central character who is not unlike Max Cady from Cape Fear.

Director Adam Blaiklock and the crew spent a month or so in the Maldives filming Caught Inside. From the outset a requirement was that the actors were all competent surfers and the surfing scenes are all shot with realism. The story is cleverly and quietly developed with moments of real suspense and surprise that make the audience gasp.

Ben Oxenbould plays Bull, at first glance popular with his peers, a larrikin who can charm anyone when he wants to. However we soon learn that he has a dark side. He has issues with women and anyone who disagrees with him and his disturbing sociopathic tendencies cannot be hidden in the confined spaces of the vessel.

He uses his strength as an intimidation to others but, interestingly, never takes on the Captain played by Peter Phelps. It is not clear whether this is due to some past incident, his respect for authority or the fact that the skipper might be stronger than him but anyone else who crosses his path is fair game.

Despite the fact that the Captain laid out the ground rules at the beginning of the trip, it becomes evident that the cruise participants are on their own – miles from anywhere. No one can help. This plays into Bull's hands as his manic tendencies become obvious. There are subtle hints that he has shown this type of behaviour before and he becomes more and more menacing and unhinged as the film progresses.

Caught Inside was filmed with a tight budget but it does demonstrate how important it is to base a movie on a great script. The film essentially revolves around Bull and Ben Oxenbould is truly exceptional in the role. He has been known as a comic actor with his performances in Comedy Inc but this film provides him with an opportunity to display a real talent for a complex character role.

In some ways the other actors are incidental to Bull but they are generally all very competent.

It is disappointing that Caught Inside hasn't reached a wider audience. The sad reality these days is that it is very difficult to get wide distribution without major stars and studio backing. Independent film makers face an up hill battle to get their films screened in cinemas.

Highly recommended.

This small-scale, lost –at-sea-with-a-maniac thriller made it's mark in the 'Freak Me Out' genre section of the Sydney Film Festival. A self-funded independent production, it's the confident debut feature from established commercials and short film director, Blaiklock.

This handsomely shot movie looks set to punch beyond its weight There's a yacht-load of good actors – especially the 'Monster' and the 'Damsel In Distress character – and the tense situation is well established with the breathless climax delivering plenty of thrills, though perhaps not as much blood and gore as modern genre fans have come to expect. With Darclight signed as world sales agent and interest coming from international festivals, this handsomely shot movie looks set to punch beyond its weight.

The Hedonist, a beautiful ocean-going yacht, heads for the Maldives Islands in the equatorial Indian Ocean with a party of six Australians on a 12-day chartered cruise of renowned surfing sites at remote islands. The captain (Peter Phelps) reminds them that on board he is the dictator The women holidaymakers are the only non-surfers: practical Alex (Leeanna Walsman) is making a video documentary of the cruise; glamorous Sam (Daisy Betts) is escaping a bad online experience where her privately videoed striptease was leaked to MySpace and scored over a million hits. Standing out from the men is Buill (Ben Oxenbould), a mighty-muscled, lank-haired misfit, at first apparently sweet-natured and helpful, but soon revealed as a sociopath and stalker with a volcanic temper.

Oxenbould is terrific as the King Kong of this island paradise, and Betts is nicely equivocal as the potential victim who sometimes enjoys employing her sexual attraction. A climactic meal scene where the fearsomely calm Bull serves up an uncooked fish is particularly powerful. The actors clearly do their own surfing in some rousing on-and-under-the-waves sequences

Cards on the table: the director and co-writer of this film are two of my oldest and dearest friends. I attended the world premier screening at the Sydney Film Festival with some trepidation. What if it's awful? Will it be a quaint little Aussie indie flick? What do I say after the film if I hate it? Thankfully, right from the portentous dismembering of fish during the opening titles, I knew I had none of these issues to deal with. Caught Inside is a beautifully made film and a well crafted story featuring believable, fallible, human players. The performances drive the narrative with skill and energy. Bull's menacing presence is carried from the outset with supreme confidence by Ben Oxenbould in a potentially award winning performance. The story is nuanced and the script allows the characters and tension to develop towards an 'edge of seat' climax. I will happily send friends to see this film, not on the proviso of supporting my friends' project, but on the promise of witnessing an excellent piece of cinema. Well written, well shot, well lit, well cast, well acted.

May it travel far.

Entertaining thriller with great ocean scenery , a lot of small details if you look closely show us that the bully is being bullied and ridiculed (first half of the film).

8/10.

Not sure why this has such terrible ratings...this is a perfect example of why I don't trust IMDB ratings.

This movie was epic! It offers a wonderful portrait of a villain...quite like Creep or Creep 2. It has a badass female protag who is capable of saving herself. It has a couple that teams up to fight the villain at the climax. It has some pretty sweet surfing scenes and is a commentary against slut shaming.

• 2 stars for portrayal of minorities/native islander people, overacting by the villain at certain points, and a weak start that made me think this was going to be a B movie.

The cinematography is beautiful, especially Sam sitting on the anchor while the dolphins swim below. Whoever did the camera work and lighting for this really deserves an award. Ending scene was so memorable and the music was well-chosen. Every actor got super into their roles - you could see the trauma and terror in their faces.