Twisted (2026) – Uninspired

Released: 6th February
Seen: 1st April

The label Torture Porn was first used around 2006 when it was applied to films like Saw, Hostel and Wolf Creek. It was an easy way to describe some of the more extreme horror-slasher films of the era that almost revelled in how much gore they could get away with showing. They were some of the most extreme films in the genre that were also major hits in the mainstream cinemas and kind of opened a floodgate that we’re still dealing with. One of the people whose films first got this label, who really just seems to have embraced it in the years since, is the director of Saw 2-4 Darren Lynn Bousman, who used to be really good at making these films… but sadly, Twisted is far from his best work.

Twisted follows con-woman Paloma Jola (Lauren LaVera) who runs a very elaborate con where she rents out houses that she doesn’t actually own, the crux of the scam being that she’ll collect the first month’s rent and by the time the real owners have made their presence known she’s already gone (somehow still not as bad as just being an actual landlord). One day she tries this scheme using a house owned by famous neurosurgeon Robert Kezian (Djimon Hounsou) and that ends up being a bad idea because it turns out Robert is one of those crazy mad scientist types that you hear so much about and is going to use Paloma in his latest experiment that involves elaborate brain surgery that we get to watch in glorious detail… joy.

I’ve obviously simplified the plot as much as possible but the wild twists and turns Twisted throws in to try and complicate things really only make it more confusing. Why is “Renting a house I don’t own” the scheme Paloma’s pulling? Who knows! How can Robert rent a house large enough to have an underground bunker large enough to have a fake hospital room and multiple surgical rooms? No fucking clue. Does anyone’s reasoning or decisions make any sense at all at any point? Absolutely fuck no, it’s a convoluted mess that tries to throw in too many things to work even remotely well. The pacing is all over the place and it just feels like things were being made up as they went along. No one seems to have a real idea of what they want to do here, and that can sometimes work in a films favour (Hell, the Saw series is kind of a masterclass in making a functional narrative as you’re going along) but not in this case.

A plot that makes no sense is a definite problem but hey, this is the torture porn subgenre so surely if the kills are weird and torturous enough then it can still be entertaining enough to work, right? Well, no, it’s hard to really see any of the films’ more horrific moments as anything interesting, half of them wouldn’t feel too out of place in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. There is never a real moment when you wince in shock or go “oh that’s just too far”, nothing here in truly bad taste or that’ll shock with how graphic it is. A lot of stabbings and brain surgery, that’s kind of it really and sure the brain surgery can be a bit icky but… well, maybe I’m desensitised but after Saw X showed me a guy trying to perform brain surgery on himself in under 2 minutes, seeing demented McDreamy doing a slightly messed up standard brain surgery just isn’t going to cut it.

What also just doesn’t cut it is the visual tone Twisted tries to use… all of them, it uses so many tones it’s kind of insane. This is a film brimming with stylistic shot choices that are used because of some reasons that no one other than the director will know, and I doubt even he could fully explain each shot choice. Some of the choices are interesting and create some cool visuals, but they’re wildly inconsistent in how they’re used. The film opens and closes with De Palma-style split screens that could have been fun if used throughout Twisted, but it’s only in those two shots. There are a few moments the film just randomly tilts to make Dutch angles but it’s not really consistent in its use. After a while, they just stop doing it for no real reason. There’s also the oddly coloured lighting that could be a fun Argento lift if it was used more often but it’s maybe in one scene at the end, and it just makes no sense. It’s like they rolled a dice and picked a new stylistic trick to use in each scene but all that does is break any immersion the audience might have. It’s a little hard to be disturbed by the brain surgery you’re doing if I’m spending the whole scene wondering where that red light came from.

The one undeniable bright spot are the performances, especially that of Lauren LaVera who already confirmed her horror icon status with her work in Terrifier 2 & 3 but she really just uses this film to really remind everyone that she is absolutely built for this genre. Twisted does the smart thing of letting her show off her skillset, a range of elaborate accents and a lot of great physical acting choices make for an interesting time, but it also means that eventually you’ll end up wishing she had better material that could match what she’s doing. Djimon Hounsou is also pretty good, he has a few moments but he’s really just kind of overpowered by the juggernaut of Lauren who owns every scene she has, she’s really trying to make the film watchable and she somehow pulls it off, frankly this is what’s kind of cemented her as a modern horror legend in my eyes because if she’s able to shine in a mess of a movie like this, she can do anything.

Even despite the best efforts of the cast though it’s still just a mess, but mostly it’s just not that fun. The con that sets everything up isn’t so horribly awful that you feel catharsis watching Paloma get her comeuppance and the eventual ‘torture’ that she’s put through isn’t so horrifying that it truly disturbs. Sure, it’s unsettling (and if brain surgery squicks you, I guess it might hit that threshold) but what makes this genre work is when either the people going through the pain are doing it for noble reasons which makes them sympathetic or they’re monsters so watching them suffer is cathartic. Hell, that’s half of what makes the Saw franchise work at its best, you’d think the guy who directed multiple entries in that franchise would understand this but Twisted suggests that he didn’t. Twisted thinks that the people are just here to watch a little screaming and implied pain but there is more to this subgenre that makes it entertaining, and this film doesn’t seem to understand that.

Twisted doesn’t go anywhere near far enough to be worth the time. Its style isn’t consistent enough to be interesting, the gore isn’t horrific enough to be shocking, the plot isn’t clever enough to be intriguing and the stakes aren’t high enough to be gripping. Everything feels like it has the concepts of a plan, there’s the kernel of an idea just rustling about waiting for someone to do something with it but they never take a big enough swing for it to be interesting. Besides one really good lead performance and maybe one half-decent moment of visceral shock at the halfway point, Twisted just isn’t good enough to be worth the investment.