Reaction & Review | Held

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be checking out a horror film from 2020. That movie is "Held".

Now, I would love to tell you everything I know about this movie, guys, but unfortunately, I don't really have much to go on. What I can tell you guys is that the plot to this thing is about a married couple, who's marriage has been on the rocks, are trapped by this stranger inside a vacation rental, who holds them hostage and has to obey their every word. And this apparently gets our two main characters to get their act together and try to figure a way out of their dangerous situation.

Now while I will say that it does sound like an interesting premise, I do have to question something, because, as I had just stated, our estranged couple are trapped inside a vacation rental home or motel. And my question is that if their marriage is in trouble, why are they taking a vacation together? I'm only asking this because, normally, I would assume that they would've talked to a guidance counselor and work their troubled marriage from there. I wouldn't think that going on vacation together would be the first thing I do if I were in an estranged relationship. But then again, I have never been married, and I probably shouldn't be questioning this in the first place. However, I do hope the movie clarifies this explanation in some way. Otherwise, I'm just gonna be left confused as all hell.

But hey, you know what? This movie could still be decent here. I'm hoping that it's still gonna be an entertaining sort of film. But I won't know for sure yet, unless I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Held".

16 minutes later

So, guys, we're almost 20 minutes into the movie and nothing has happened. And I'm not kidding either, *nothing* has happened. I'm hoping maybe this film will pick up sooner, rather than later. I'm also hoping for the acting to get better, too, because the acting from our two main leads so far is pretty terrible. This movie is not off to a strong start here.

16 minutes later

So let me if I understand this. This entire scheme of our main characters trapped inside this rental home, and the person who's doing this, is to essentially try and force them to be a happy couple or something against their will. At least, that's what I'm getting at so far from this movie. And if that *is* the case, then that's honestly a really stupid plan. And how exactly this person got all of Barrett's information about "what they did" is another thing altogether. I'm hoping that some of this is going to make some semblance of sense, otherwise, I'm just gonna be left baffled and totally confused by this whole concept.

9 minutes later

OK, I have a big question here. So, Henry, the husband, has found out from some information on this laptop, set up by our captor, that Emma, the wife, has been cheating on him with another dude named Ryan. And, of course, Henry's pissed that Emma wasn't telling him the truth. That part, honestly, doesn't bother me too much. What does bother me, however, is how exactly this person who's trapped them here set this whole thing up to begin with? Because I'm sure the person had to have gone to some great lengths to get all their private information, find the perfect place to set this whole thing up, I mean, they had to have planned this shit in advance. And I'm also wondering that if any part of it didn't go exactly as planned from the captor's point of view, then this whole plan would've been fucked right from square one. I'm sorry, guys, but the more that I pick this story apart, it starts to suck and it starts to suck hard! And I still have about less than an hour to go, and I'm not really sure if it's actually going to get any better.

12 minutes later

So now the Uber driver who took Emma to this house to begin with is now either dead or incapacitated by the same person with the leather mask. The same person who also, again, trapped our estranged couple inside their vacation home. And I probably would care about the plight of our main characters, however, this movie really hasn't given me much of a reason to care about them, so far, because they're both still boring as shit and, at this point, I'm not having much faith in this movie getting any better.

10 minutes later

All right, so now, Emma just killed Ryan. You know, the guy who she was having an affair with over her husband. How the fuck this captor knows about where Ryan lived and how he brought him over to the vacation home is another thing altogether. Seriously, guys, I really hope that this movie actually attempts to explain something about how our captor was able to do all this. Otherwise, if *anything* gets left unanswered by the time this movie finishes within the next half hour or so, I'm gonna be a bit pissed.

11 minutes later

So, guys, I've finally got an answer to all of my questions. Well, most of them anyway. I still don't know who's behind that mask. However, I know the basics of the origin behind this whole scheme to begin with, and it's kinda stupid, really. I'll just leave it at that for now.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Held". Let me shut the movie off here...OK. Well...where to begin with this one? Um...well, I guess it's not really a shocker when I tell you that this movie sucks, guys. It really is a bad movie. Is it the worst I've seen so far this year? No, not even by a long shot does this movie reach that milestone. However, that's not giving this film much praise here, as it's certainly far from interesting, or even entertaining in the slightest.

Why don't I just forgo all the nonsense here and just go straight into it. I'm gonna start with writing. And the first thing I need to bring up is the plot twist that this movie has. Now, it's gonna be a little bit of a challenge here to talk about this without having to spoil anything. I will say this much, without giving away anything, that it sorta telegraphs the plot twist about halfway into the movie. And it's during the long scene where our estranged couple is forced to have sex with each other by the person who's commanding them to do this. I'll talk about more the captor later. However, as I just said, they telegraph this twist about halfway through the movie, and it's not really even much of a twist, even when after you eventually discover it through Emma's lens. And also the motivation for it is both really stupid and, well, it reinforces my point from way early on that they really could've just seeked counseling. How much of an effect it would've had is left up to interpretation, but still. Regardless, the twist is not really much of a twist. And as for who's behind the leather mask is also kind of stupid as well, though at least that one is less obvious than the actual twist this movie provides.

Now beyond the plot twist, the premise actually did have some promise. The problem here is that it's not executed very well. In fact, it's more boring than anything else. Because throughout most of the middle of the film, it's just our estranged couple, Emma and Henry, being forced to do things that a husband and wife would normally do. Such as the wife cooking dinner, and while the husband opens the door for her while she says thank you. And, of course, you have that point in which Henry discovers his wife had an affair with Ryan, and he gets pissed at her for not telling the truth. All of that could've been really interesting, but instead, it sorta just drags on itself for a while and it doesn't really pick up until the plot twist is actually revealed about a third into the film. And I will give credit to this movie for actually trying to be interesting during it's latter half. Unfortunately, everything before that is just really dull and boring as hell. On top of that, this movie also teaches you a valuable lesson not to invest in smart houses, seeing as how our captor is able to view our couple at all times with the cameras set around the house and is able to talk to them at anytime. But then again, I never found value in a smart house anyways, outside of security reasons.

Speaking of, let's talk about our main characters, Emma and Henry. This is the couple that you're supposed to care about and hopes that they'll be able to make it out alive from their situation. However, you're not really gonna care about either one of these characters because they're both boring as hell, and have no real personality to their characters. And it's not like I can pick out any distinct features or anything unique about them here because they're both in the same camp of boring, dry, and uninteresting characters. I can't even say anything positive about the masked captor who holds them hostage because that person really doesn't have very many scenes, even when they unmask themselves afterwards. So ultimately, you can write off these characters as unimportant. Unless you want to factor in the plot twist, but even so, these characters just don't have any interesting personalities or depth to make you want to keep watching this movie.

So yeah, guys, the writing in this movie is just bland and terrible. The premise itself had some promise, but was obviously poorly executed. And while I'm on the subject of our main couple, let's talk about their acting. Since it's mostly focused on them, you gotta suffer through most of their terribly wooden acting. Almost none of it sounds natural in any way, and none of their acting improves while the film is going on. The only actor I could probably say turns in a halfway decent showing is the guy doing the intercom voice from the smart house. But then again, it's mostly just a synthetic monotone voice, so I can't really judge much of it as either being good or bad. And also, the voice is from the same guy who directed and produced the film, Travis Cluff. I can't really say much about his acting skills, but I can say at least he made a pretty terrible movie here. So, congrats, dude, you certainly took an interesting premise and turned it into shit. But aside from him, the acting in this movie is just not very good at all.

Special effects in this film is probably one of the few positives I can give this movie, because even though the film was most likely working with a low budget, the effects here are actually pretty good. You have your standard blood effects, which are certainly decent. The most interesting effect is when you see Emma pull some electronic signal from her ear and it is pretty gruesome. Still though, it was a really good effect, probably the best one in the entire movie. And I will also say our sets, AKA the smart house, is a nice looking house at least. Granted, I would obviously never live there, but at least it's nice to look at. Which is all it is. So yeah, the special effects here are pretty good, and the smart house looks fine as well.

Camerawork here is pretty good. Lighting here is lit very well. The sound-mix here is good. The score here is just OK. None of it is great, as it's mostly generic, but, at least, it sorta gets the job done.

So with all that being said, guys, when it comes to down it, am I able to recommend "Held"? No. I really can't find much of any reason to recommend this movie to you guys, unless if you want to riff on it with friends on a bad movie night. But beyond that, there's really not much else I can say is worth watching here. The premise itself could've worked better, but ultimately, it didn't. The acting here is mostly terrible. And even though the special effects are pretty good, it's not enough for me to say that you should go check this movie out right now. It's really not that interesting. Also, I probably should've mentioned this way early on before I started watching the movie, the title is also incredibly generic, too. The only reason why I even bothered with this movie was because I was able to read the synopsis on the back of the DVD case. And while it sounded interesting to me at the time, it's not enough for me to keep around after watching it. So yeah, I think it goes without saying that I'm not gonna be rewatching this movie ever again. So, with that in mind, I'm gonna go and watch a better horror movie. I'll probably just marathon the first two "Wishmaster" movies because I need to watch something better after having to deal with this crap.

So anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.