The Tortured (2010) 1h 19m

I've never really been a fan of "torture porn" style horror.  Sure, some of the Hostels were okay, the first one or two Saw movies had their moment, and a few others are definitely watchable but just not my thing.  However, this may be my first foray into what could be considered "revenge porn."

The Tortured begins with a couple dealing with the kidnapping, murder, and subsequent trial of the man that did this to their six year-old son.  After he gets 25-to-life as opposed to life without parole, the couple decide that the kidnapper needs to be punished, tortured, for his crimes.

This film is basically broken into two sections with small bridges in between.  You have the establishment of the agony of losing a child in such a terrible manner and how devastated the couple is.  It's mainly to allow themselves and the viewer to feel that this course of action is justified.  The other revolves around the torture of this man.  There are a combination of introspective moral moments and a questioning of the couple's actions.  We get handed some serious twists here and there, but what this comes down to is do the means justify the ends, vice versa, or, is there any real justice at all?

The saving grace of this film is the ending.  I really don't care about the guy's nipple being burnt with a soldiering iron or any of that other crap.  The couple has an odd catharsis to which only the viewer knows the truth and that made me run back through the film in my head.  So it makes me actually think of it when it's done, but honestly I'll probably forget about it in a month.

I give The Tortured 1 prison jumpsuit costume out of 5:

Kill or Be Killed (2015) 1h 43m

You can't outrun the washing machine is more like it.  For the 1900's, these people all have impeccably clean clothes.  Even the prisoner chain gain building the railroad at the beginning were taken away by Calgon.  I guess that just matches their well trimmed or shaved facial hair and perfect coifs, but they did put some dirt on their faces (just not their hands).  Oh, also, this isn't a fucking horror movie Netflix!  Get your shit together!

Kill or Be Killed follows a group of bandits in search of a hidden stash of money from a previous heist.  They start the journey by robbing a church and shooting their way out.  In the process they kill two priests.  This is important for the end, otherwise... you know... whatever.  Their journey west (or further west...) ends each night with one of the members dying in growing violent fashions.  Each body has a strange circular symbol on their arm.

As the nights progress. their leader continues to hear a bell ding in the darkness and every day he loses his mind greater and greater.  In the end he is the only one left.  He fakes his own death which leads to a boy walking out of the tall grass.  He then marks the man's arm as he jumps up from the ground and tussles with the kid.  Eventually he breaks the boy's neck and staggers until he finds the treasure.  He passes out from exhaustion to find the boy watching him.  He is left for dead by the kid who ends up being the brother of the other boy that was just killed and the son of one of the priests killed in the beginning.  See, that shit comes back!  But in that uncomfortable way... like herpes... except you can't just turn off or rate herpes with a thumbs down in hopes of getting less herpes.

So, not a horror film.  Maybe a thriller-ish type thing?  Barely a western.  Horses, revolvers, and racist terms for Native Americans don't make westerns... wait... maybe they did.  That's all John Wayne films were, right?  I always cared more about the Eastwood Dollars trilogy.

I give Kill or Be Killed 0 adorable pictures I found when Google image searching "cowboy ghost" out of 5:

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