Some might find this fact difficult to stomach, but there was a fairly recent time in horror movie history where the Saw franchise reigned supreme at the multiplex. Before the spooky haunted house excursions of Insidious and The Conjuring universe, or the found footage trappings of Paranormal Activity and V/H/S, torture porn was all the rage after the turn of the millennium, with New French Extremity, Hostel, and the aforementioned misadventures of Jigsaw ushering in a wave of cinematic pain and intricate depictions of bodily mutilation. The thought of such an era now seems quaint, but for about a decade the adage went: “If it’s Halloween, it must be Saw.” Shepherding much of that franchise was director Darren Lynn Bousman, who helmed three entries between 2005 and 2007 before later taking a curtain call with Spiral: From the Book of Saw in 2021. While Bousman’s belated return couldn’t goose a new generation of horror fans, the director is in no hurry to hang up the genre yet, as evidenced in Twisted, his latest feature film. Dipping his toes into the real-world horrors of the house crisis and medical oddities, Twisted offers a nugget of an interesting premise, but Bousman can’t quite deliver the goods, turning in a fairly limp offering that skimps on the frights and gore. Despite bearing their production company logo, Twisted is most certainly not a twisted picture.
Millennials Paloma (Lauren LaVera of the Terrifier films) and Smith (Mia Healey) are a pair of lovers who’ve worked out a decent con to keep themselves rolling in cash: by renting out Airbnbs, they then upload the details of their temporary housing to various real estate apps, suckering unsuspecting buyers into thinking they’re securing the deal of a lifetime by purchasing a property that is not technically for sale, culminating in both women ghosting the poor bastards when the real owners return, making off scot free with their easy earnings. It’s a scam that suits their luxurious lifestyle well, exploiting a volatile market for their own gain. Their next mark is the gorgeous three-story brownstone owned by Dr. Kezian (Djimon Hounsou), a brilliant and distinguished neurosurgeon. With the rental secured and pleasantries dispensed with, Paloma and Smith go right to work finding their next prey, prepping the building for tours. However, the hunters quickly find themselves becoming the hunted, as Kezian is harboring a dark secret of his own, searching for the perfect specimen to help him reunite with his deceased wife through a radical new form of brain surgery.
While still incredibly nascent as a subgenre, Airbnb Horror has already birthed a few notable examples, particularly 2022’s Barbarian and (to a lesser extent) 2020’s The Rental. However, even if one were to accept the premise of Twisted, the bit still becomes a tough pill to swallow when faced with even a small measure of logic for more than a few minutes. For instance, the girls’ scam: what is the turnaround time for closing a real estate deal these days? Are no other agents or brokers involved? Are there no questions of insurance, inspections, or walkthroughs? How soon are payments transferred, and through what mode of payment are they issued? Suppose they cannot sell a property: do they just eat the cost of the high-class rental? The screenplay, credited to Jonathan Bernstein and James Greer, does not offer any insight to how Paloma and Smith operate; they just simply are successful at what they do, and God help anyone who crosses their path.
Unless that anyone happens to be Dr. Kezian. The good doctor keeps up appearances around his hospital, offering encouragement to patients pre- and post-surgery and sharing a nice rapport with his team (Neal McDonough plays a colleague). But deep in his apartment lies a much more sinister story, as Kezian’s home comes equipped with his own subterranean surgery suite that is preserving the body of wife Rebecca (Alicia Witt), while security consists of a mentally-altered Lurch-like figure who acts as hired muscle. When a prospective deal for Paloma and Smith goes south, requiring Kezian’s violent intervention, the pair become ensnared by the madman, with Paloma’s body a fitting candidate to house Rebecca’s brain. What follows should make one feel squeamish, but Twisted is a bizarrely anemic affair, sure to disappoint gorehounds with the paucity of bloodshed on display.
But where splatter may be in short supply, idiocy abounds in Twisted, including Smith’s modus operandi for conducting her real estate tours (she takes to naming herself after female protagonists of classic literature, with Emma Bovary and Anna Karenina being her preferred aliases). Also on the real estate fraud case are two nosy detectives, portrayed by Gina Philips and Prof the Rapper, both of whom are extremely irritating and offer little value to the narrative. Bousman also feels haphazard behind the camera, randomly throwing in split screens, time lapses, and screen wipe transitions as a last-ditch effort to make up for a lack of content. Twisted does at least boast a trio of capable lead performances that do their best to sell the D-grade material, but the film is ultimately too timid and po-faced to live up to its potential for either gruesomeness or camp.
DIRECTOR: Darren Lynn Bousman; CAST: Djimon Hounsou, Lauren LaVera, Mia Healey, Alicia Witt; DISTRIBUTOR: Republic Pictures; IN THEATERS: February 6; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 33 min.
Comments are closed.