There’s not enough Lesley Manville for my liking but psychological horror film Rupture is creepy enough
“If you find out what it is, then you’ve made real progress”
Directed by Steven Shainberg and written by Shainberg and Brian Nelson, Rupture is the kinda low-key horror flick that you could well imagine could build a B-movie cult following. By all accounts it hasn’t managed that but I don’t think you can predict that kind of viral success. As a Noomi Rapace vehicle, it hits the mark though, with a supporting cast that includes Michael Chiklis, Peter Stormare and the marvellous Lesley Manville.
Rapace plays Renee, a single mum with an adorable smart aleck son and a borderline abusive ex with whom she is trying to co-parent. On a rare day off, she’s booked a skydive but after a mysterious couple engineer her roadside abduction by causing a tyre blowout, she’s whisked into the back of a van, Manville pops up to kindly ask if she wants her to take her knickers off given she’s in handcuffs and away they go to a secret hideaway.
For those who have kidnapped her have something very specific in mind and in order to figure it out, they subject Renee to some pretty nasty experiments around the nature of fear. Ominous looking syringes are never far away, screaming voices of others who seem to have been abducted too echo down the corridor and all the while, Renee is hopelessly looking for a way to escape from the restraints on her gurney and a way out of this nightmare.
Rupture largely leans into the B-movie schtick and as the mysterious muttering figures around her, the supporting cast have fun with the little they have to do. Rapace does most of the heavy lifting and is effective enough, although let down a little by the script which doesn’t quite deliver on the creepy promise of the conceit.
