BREEDER ** Denmark 2020 Dir: Jens Dahl. 107 mins
A renowned health supplement company, run by a ruthless businesswoman, is selecting and abducting young women as part of an experiment bio-hacking babies’ DNA to enable her clients to reverse the aging process. When Mia (Sara Hjort Ditlevsen) goes to investigate, she finds herself trapped, branded, and tortured in a grim underground facility. Familiar faces start to appear, and she realizes that she is not alone in this. Can she somehow find inner strength and escape from the nightmare?
Overall, there’s just very little to like about “Breeder.” Among the few bright spots featured is the cruelty and barbaric treatment that purports to tell a message about the elite willing to go through the process of acquiring the treatment through the extreme torture and abuse of other people throughout here. These scenes carry off a disturbingly graphic streak which makes the scenes that much harder and more difficult to sit through and allows the cathartic nature of the finale half involving the revenge and eventual escape to provide a somewhat enjoyable outcome to the rest of the generally bleak scenario. However, since the majority of the film is so focused on these aspects that it eventually becomes uninteresting after a while since the repeated scenes of her and the other victims being brutalized and tortured in captivity against their will provide nothing of interest for those that don’t enjoy this kind of material. As well, there’s also the overlong and unnecessary running time that makes this one far too long for this type of film. With all the first half talk of the corporate intrigue and conspiracy investigation that goes on, it’s highly uninvolved and doesn’t get this one going too strongly. These are what hold this one down the most.
Review by Don Anelli
BREEDER is available on Amazon