The Seasoning House

Rape and revenge thrillers have been around for decades. From The Last House on The Left to I Spit on Your Grave and their subsequent remakes/sequels, the rape/revenge genre has been infamous for being shocking, most notably the general explicit sexual assault on women for a good chunk of screen time, and the violent acts of revenge in the last act of the films. There's a purpose for that. The assault is designed to be extremely uncomfortable to sit through and the intention is to make the audience sympathize with the victim as well as hoping that the people assaulting the victim get their comeuppance. On a psychological level, it's supposed to be a kind of release to see revenge being taken. For the most part, it's particularly effective. And honestly, anyone who has no problem watching a woman getting assaulted on screen for 20 minutes? There's something seriously wrong with those people. These are not the kind of movies that are to be enjoyed on the same level as action movies or even other horror movies. In some movies like the original Last House on the Left, I think that the assault goes on for too long and as a result, cheapens the rest of the movie, and doesn't seem genuine. The revenge scenes on the other hand, tend to be more....gratifying, because the scumbags get offed in the most horrible ways. And they have it coming. The Seasoning House takes the revenge genre and gives it a fairly unique element.

The Seasoning House opens as a young girl named Angel(Rosie Day) is walking the halls of a run-down complex. This complex happens to be an illegal brothel in the Balkans, run by a demented man named Viktor(Kevin Howarth). The girls were kidnapped off the streets during a brutal and violent military campaign led by a ruthless soldier named Goran(Sean Pertwee). This man and his soldiers are responsible for the murder of Angel's family. Angel is a deaf-mute girl who can only understand sign language, and she meets one of the kidnapped girls who is able to communicate with her and form a sort of friendship. There are a couple of twists and turns in this movie, so I won't spoil them, but they aren't bad, not necessarily unpredictable, but decent. 

Now, when I said that The Seasoning House had a unique element, that element is Rosie Day's character, Angel, who is a deaf-mute, so she spends the entire movie mostly silent with the exception of some screams here and there. Rosie's performance is nothing short of brilliant. She makes Angel a very compelling and sympathetic character. Rosie Day deserves some kind of award for this performance, she's spectacular. The villains are a pretty spectacular bunch as well, which is unusual for a film like this, as most horror film villains are generally, cardboard cut-out caricatures and are poorly acted. Not here. The owner of the brothel is played by Kevin Howarth, who does a fantastic job playing a bad guy. But this bad guy actually has a bit of humanity to him, not much, but a little. He doesn't seem to mind the paying customers who come to his place for a little....fun, but he does seem to actually care about Angel to a certain degree. The real villain of this film however, is Goran, played brilliantly by Sean Pertwee. There's nothing redeemable about this guy. He is evil, a real scumbag. Pertwee maintains his cool just enough, but you can see the malice in his eyes, and when he goes berserk, Pertwee goes all out. Sean Pertwee probably one of the most underrated actors I've seen. He was fantastic in Dog Soldiers and Event Horizon, but he really gets to cut loose in this film, and yet his performance doesn't really come across as completely over-the-top.

How violent is this movie? Very. The scenes in which Goran's soldiers are killing people, is brutal. The violence in the third act of the film when Angel gets her revenge, is unrelenting and extremely bloody. This is not CGI blood either, these are practical effects....in the third act, anyway. You can see a little CGI stuff in the Balkan war scenes, but that is an actual tank they use and fire. Which is awesome...because, well, tanks are awesome. There are two rape scenes in this movie, and while they are not the intensity of movies like I Spit on Your Grave, they are still very unpleasant. So...just a warning: This movie is not for the faint of heart. I almost forgot to mention that the film can be claustrophobic at certain points, because Angel is small to movie around behind the walls and under the floors in the brothel. Again, another one of those interesting and effective elements that I noticed.

It's not a perfect movie. Some of the CG effects are rather obvious towards the beginning of the film. There is also the question of how a pint-sized girl could take on a squad of highly trained soldiers. But these are fairly minor nitpicks. Overall, this a very effective thriller, with great performances across the board. As a revenge thriller, I think this movie is actually far more effective than the recent I Spit on Your Grave movies, and it doesn't come across as overly exploitative. For genre fans, this one comes recommended. For casual movie fans, stay away. This is not a movie for everyone. But for those who, like me, have a strong stomach, there's some genuine thrills to be had here. I give it a solid 9/10.