After years of being compared to her Dad David’s films, Jennifer Lynch decides to give up and just make a film in his shadow. While Chained is by no means a total success it has the look and feel of a classic Lynchian’ film, and at times is as disturbing as anything David has made.
Unlike a David Lynch film however this is more of a classic horror/serial killer story. Vincent D’Onofrio is Bob, a dull, podgy taxi driver with a weird lisp who kidnaps passengers, rapes and murders them with a knife and keeps their bodies buried under his creepy house.
When Bob kidnaps a woman (Julia Ormond) and her young son, he kills her but decides to keep the boy as a slave. He renames the boy Rabbit, and forces him to clean and cook while he continues his killing spree. The boy tries to escape, Bob responds by chaining him up. Bob is obsessed with keeping souvenirs from his victims, and Rabbit has to put the cuttings from the papers into a scrapbook, as well as organising their personal effects. There is even one scene where the pair play top trumps with the ages of the dead girls.
Slowly Bob makes the decision to coach Rabbit into some serial killing of his own. He buys the boy books on anatomy, asking him to identify exactly how his victims have died. The boy learns quickly but simply refuses to kill anyone. His reason to Bob? You’re better at it than me’.
Eventually Bon forces Rabbit to go into the outside world and pick a victim, bring her home and rape and murder her. He picks a girl (Conor Leslie), but the film ends with a twist which frankly undoes a lot of the work of the first, grisly, awful first 70 minutes.
As a profile of a serial killer, Chained is utterly compelling and appallingly gripping. Bob is a classic weird loner, his fat body, disorienting lisp and poor personal hygiene giving him the feel of a sad loser, until he jumps into his favourite sport. His is the best portrayal of the drabness of the life of a serial killer since Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer. His relationship with the boy grows in a creepily paternal way, and they do develop a kind of bond, even though Rabbit is clearly utterly traumatised by his life.
His house is where the comparisons with Lynch senior are strongest. It’s a headache-inducing interior, with drab browns and disgusting pinks lit only by dull lamps and the permanent glow of an analogue TV. Some of the rooms look like a particularly gruesome prison or torture chamber, and the basement is obviously beyond shocking. Thankfully the story lets Lynch’s camera wander outside sometimes, for what feels like fresh air, but even then Los Angeles looks like a neon-lit dark nightmare, noir at its bleakest. Clearly that matches the mood of the story.
Overall verdict: A classic noir serial killer story which looks fantastic, but ultimately is spoiled by a melodramatic ending which slightly spoils what has occurred before. At times this is stomach-churning stuff and always powerful, with the performances matching the mood throughout.
Reviewer: Mike Martin