Groan!
You go in looking for one thing–sexiness, gory torture, and eventual revenge–and you’re getting all that for a little while…and then you’re delivered a big fat turd of a movie. There has yet to be a truly great BDSM torture thriller. Deadly Virtues had the chance and dropped the ball.
Synopsis: “A stranger breaks into the house of a couple, ties up the husband and, having a whole weekend at his hand, plays a slow game with the woman, a game of threats, fear, obedience – and intimacy.” –IMDB
The movie wastes no time in getting to the action. We see a man walking up to a house, removing a key from a folded piece of paper, and entering the house to the sounds of people having sex upstairs. He roams through the house before eventually opening the door to the master bedroom, where we get our first let-down, the first of many, a precursor of things to come. The man has the woman doggystyle and is groaning way too load–annoyingly so, in fact–and the woman is obviously getting zero enjoyment from this experience. So, as viewers, this instantly robs us of some of the anxiety we should be feeling over the man who’s just creeped into the house. Instead, we’re thinking, Why is she not enjoying this?
As it turns out, the husband, Tom (Matt Barber), has way more problems than not being able to please his wife in bed. He’s a cheater and he’s verbally and physically abusive to his wife. And herein lies the problem. Tom is promptly beaten and tied-up and thrown in the bathtub–screaming like a bitch the whole way–and we’re supposed to be sympathetic of this? At first, we are a little bit. But as we learn of his true character, we stop caring altogether, yet the movie keeps on acting like we should.
Meanwhile, the intruder (Edward Akrout) ties up the wife, Alison (Megan Maczko), and proceeds to treat her like a princess, except when he’s cutting off her husband’s fingers and whatnot. He brings her breakfast in bed and caresses her and takes erotic photos of her. He never tortures the woman, aside from restraining her. He doesn’t hit her or try to rape her–nothing. So, the audience is supposed to like this intruder despite the fact that he’s torturing a guy in the bathroom? It doesn’t work.
Deadly Virtues would be ten-thousand times better if we cared about Tom. If he was a good guy and we watched his struggles in the bathroom, we would be hoping for him to somehow free himself and burst into the bedroom and kill the intruder just in time to save Alison. Instead, we’re hoping for his swift death so we don’t have to see his whiny face anymore.
The only real redeeming quality of the movie are the scenes of rope bondage. It’s pretty clear that Edward Akrout learned some serious rope skills for the role. But the goods pretty much end there. Don’t get me started on the ridiculous ending–the numerous aspects of the ending that are ridiculous, in fact. This may be the worst final ten minutes of a movie I’ve ever witnessed. Stupid on so many levels.
If you still want to see Deadly Virtues, it’s on Tubi and Amazon.