Pet  (2016)

I think I actually stumbled across this movie because I thought it was something else. There was some other weirdo indie movie I had heard of, where a guy keeps a girl in a cage (not exactly like this); as I started to watch it, I wondered if I was mistaken because there was no way this movie was highly regarded by anyone. Luckily I kept my vow of not giving up on a movie, because about halfway through I got smacked in the face with a twist that changed the entire viewing experience.

Seth is a quiet guy working at an Animal Control facility. One day he bumps into a girl he knew from high school, the girl that everyone liked in high school, the girl that didn't know he existed. After cyber-stalking her doesn't lead to a date, he decides to just take what he wants, and abducts her. In the bowels of the Animal Control building, he builds a cage to keep her in until he can "save" her.

So at this point I'm thinking it's kind of boring, Seth is just sort of anonymously wormy, Holly is a cliche writer trying to pay the bills via waitressing; there's a doofy boyfriend and a sassy roommate. The abduction scene was sufficiently tense, but other than that, nothing had really stood out.

AND THEN

Things started to unravel in a very interesting way. You expect the victim to play psychological games to convince her attacker to free her, but Holly ends up being way more psycho than expected. The movie actually had some clever ways to set you up for one twist, before spinning in the opposite direction. The second half of the movie explodes with blood and gore, stabbing and smashing and sawing.

I was a bit disappointed in the final scene, as I hoped there would be a slightly more ambiguous ending. Without spoiling too much, there were initially questions of who was manipulating who, and it was hard to be certain what was the truth. The ending of the movie was a bit of a let-down, simply because I had hoped the entire thing would have turned out to be a mind-f*ck.

[Celluloid Hero] gives "Pet" a 6 out of 10.

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