THE SEASONING HOUSE (2012)

Studio:       Well Go USA
Director:    Paul Hyett
Writer:       Paul Hyett, Conal Palmer, Adrian Riglesford
Producer:  Michael Riley
Stars:     Rosie Day, Sean Pertwee, Kevin Howarth, Anna Walton, Jemma Powell

Review Score:

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Summary:

A deaf mute enslaved in a house of prostitution finds a way to exact revenge on the merciless soldiers who destroyed her life.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

The Balkans, 1996 – Deaf mute Angel emerges from a vent in the wall inside a whorehouse where kidnapped girls are forced into sexual slavery to be prostituted to the military. Since she was abducted from her home by soldiers after seeing her mother executed, house operator Viktor has tasked Angel with duties at the house that include keeping his girls drugged with heroin.

Angel befriends new girl Alexa, who is able to use sign language. Angel uses the vent system to secretly bring Alexa chocolate and to comfort the girl after her pelvis is broken following a brutal encounter with one of the house’s clients. A doctor named Andre examines Alexa after the incident.

Viktor tells Angel that he loves her. He gives her a key that he claims will open all locks in the house and allow her to go free if she wants. He adds that he does not believe she would use it because he believes that she loves him too.

Angel sees that the latest band of soldiers to come to the house is the same group that killed her mother and enslaved her. Their commanding officer, Goran, meets with Viktor and chides the house operator for engaging in activities behind his back.

Upstairs, a soldier named Ivan chokes Alexa to death while raping her. Angel emerges from the vent and begins to stab Ivan. A struggle ensues. Ivan dies and the other men are alerted to the commotion as Angel escapes back into the vent. Goran and his soldiers search for the girl as she continues to attack them by using the vents to maneuver throughout the house.

Angel escapes into the woods and the remaining men follow. Viktor finds Angel and is able to disarm her by promising not to hurt the girl. He then strikes her for the trouble she caused as Goran happens onto the scene. Viktor uses Angel as a human shield when Goran raises his gun in contemplation of killing Viktor for his duplicitous treachery. Goran’s son Josif turns the confrontation into a Mexican standoff. The men eventually agree to lower their weapons, but Angel grabs a knife from Viktor’s belt and escapes after stabbing him in the foot. The injury causes Viktor to inadvertently shoot and kill Josif. Goran kills Viktor in return.

Angel escapes to a nearby home where a woman mends the girl’s wounds. As she recovers, Angel realizes that the woman is actually Ivan’s wife. Goran calls and informs her that the girl she is harboring is the person who killed her husband. She and Angel fight, with Angel ultimately stabbing the woman to death.

Goran’s pursuit continues. Angel finally makes it into a confined tunnel. Goran attempts to follow, but he becomes stuck. Angel turns around and returns to taunt the man before finally leaving him trapped and humiliated. Angel escapes to another home that turns out to be the residence of Dr. Andre.

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Review:

Know upfront that “The Seasoning House” has a first half hour that is a punishing experience.  Top tier revenge thrillers such as “Last House on the Left” by nature contain jarring moments of gritty brutality, but there is an underlying sense of cinematic unreality beneath the terror even without having to repeat, “it’s only a movie.”  Yet “The Seasoning House” is grounded in a grim realism that makes its unflinching horror even more uncomfortably tragic.

Set against the backdrop of the Balkan Peninsula during the height of the region’s unrest in the 1990’s, “The Seasoning House” features graphic depictions of violent rape against children, torturous abuse, and myriad other deplorable actions of Slavic soldiers acting without conscience or morality.  With the expository sequences drenched in matter-of-fact drama, the connotation drawn to memories of news reports from that era frame the revulsion in a disturbing perspective of unfortunate historical truthfulness.

A debate can be had about how much of the sexual violence and psychological aftermath on display is necessary for the movie to achieve its goals.  But no consensus would ever be reached on a theme that controversial to begin with.  The effect is purposefully unsettling, and it comes with a question of whether events can fire on cylinders other than providing a tone that makes the film difficult to watch.  Fortunately, the answer to that question is yes, it can.

Young actress Rosie Day collaborates with an impressively structured screenplay to create a fully developed character from a completely wordless performance.  Day astonishes as Angel, a deaf mute ripped away at gunpoint from her executed mother to be enslaved in a house where abducted girls are abused as sex slaves.  As the revolving door of military clientele unremorsefully rapes and beats, Angel’s job is to keep the merchandise doped with heroin and to cleanse the wounds when pelvises are reprehensibly broken.

Angel moves about the whorehouse surreptitiously via grates in the wall that link the rooms together.  She eventually befriends a new girl whose life with a deaf father gave her the ability to communicate with Angel through sign language.  It is this connection that inspires Angel to take action when the latest crop of customers turns out to be the same group of depraved soldiers that murdered her mother and gave her this Hell.

Equaling Rosie Day in screen presence is Sean Pertwee as the mercilessly militant Goran.  He spikes his unhinged soldier persona with a wide-eyed menace that expresses cold and calculating menace with unapologetic mania.  Goran and Angel are finely tuned as perfectly matched adversaries.

What charity the movie does have for its audience comes when the aggression shifts from the soldiers and onto Angel.  The stark reality remains hanging in the air, but the mind is thankfully allowed to engage in “The Seasoning House” as more of a nailbiting cinematic experience as opposed to purely oppressive drama.  The darkness of the first act then works more so in retrospect to balance the bursts of stylistic action and beats of tension that populate the latter part of the plot.

Making his feature film debut, director Paul Hyett has a lengthy résumé full of special effects credits.  Unsurprisingly, “The Seasoning House” includes several well-designed scenes of sudden shocks delivered with skillfully crafted makeup effects that heighten the onscreen horror.

First features are rarely this crisp.  For all of the controversy that Hyett risks courting with the setup and the subject matter, his film avoids exploiting perversion for a careful focus on tension and suspense.  “The Seasoning House” does not reinvent the revenge thriller, but it encapsulates all of the elements and feelings, for better and for worse, that give the sub-genre such power to leave a lasting impression on the mind.

Review Score:  80

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