Chained

 (2012) ***1/2

A woman and her nine-year-old son hop in a cab after watching a movie. They start to get nervous when the cab driver takes wrong turn after wrong turn quickly realizing they are trapped in the hands of a predator with no way out. He takes them back to his house where he murders the woman leaving the boy at his mercy. He decides to chain the boy up and keep him to cook for him, clean up after his killings and to train him as an apprentice who he affectionately nicknames Rabbit. The years pass and Rabbit is now a young man, his captor decides it’s time for him to break his cherry, both sexually and his first kill. He has Rabbit look through a yearbook and pick a girl of his liking then he brings one back for him. This is a pivotal point; will he become the beast or stay true?

I was shocked to find a film so intriguing this late in the game but chained really hit the mark. I was glued to the TV waiting to see how it would all play out. It’s really all about Rabbit’s survival instinct, what he’s willing to do just to stay alive. In the strangest way his capturer is actually nurturing as with careful consideration he works to teach the boy his trade. He obviously sees what he does as perfectly normal and feels no remorse, its just part of his job. Quite a different look at a serial killer, it's a solid story with a very interesting shift at the end.