Noomi Rapace is everyone’s favorite punk rock girl power hero from the early-2000’s “Girl Who Did Badass Stuff” movies. Great movies, great character, and every so often I see her name in something and I think “I should see that, she was badass 20 years ago” but I never do. She’s in this movie, playing a single mom who is afraid of bugs and stuff, and I guess this is my reintroduction movie.
For starters, the filmmaker makes a big deal out of showing her put an Xacto knife in her back pocket in the first 4 minutes, so you know that knife is going to show up again later in the movie, probably the thing that saves her life. We know that now, but let’s see how that unfolds!
We do know that someone is tracking her. They put cameras in her house and a mysterious thing on her car, who could it be? What are they up to? They want to abduct her and drive her far away, why do they wanna do that? Who are these people? Why her? Mysteries!
She gets brought to some type of secret medical sciencey facility that is simultaneously upscale and shitty. You know what I’m talking about, the plaster is cracked, door hinges are rusty, there are cobwebs and dust all over, but the place is outfitted with state-of-the-art futuristic machinery and door locks and such. It’s the equivalent of a kid who buys a 600-dollar used car and fits it with a 4,000-dollar stereo. Pretty fucking weird like that.
There’s other abducted people getting the business here, she can hear them screaming through the vents. Probably pretty unsettling, right? We STILL don’t know why she’s here but we know screaming will be involved. Cool.
Weird science people are doing evil scientist experiments on people who are afraid of things like bugs and stuff, and if you win you get to go home or something. A couple doctors come in, ask a bunch of doctor type questions, then sniff her face for some reason.
Are you afraid of the dark? No. Afraid of sex? No. Snakes? No. Afraid of spiders? (dramatic pause. Doctors look knowingly at each other) Now you know she’s going to be exposed to spiders. Crap. Can we go back to the question about fear of sex? ‘Cause I’m terrified of that shit! Terrified of lipstick and high heels, too! And two chicks at the same time? Don’t get me started on THAT nightmare!
Nope. No sex. Just bugs. They put a bug or two on her, then wonder “Did she rupture? I don’t think she ruptured yet, but I’m sure she’s gonna rupture eventually” and I don’t know what the hell THAT means but now I’m POSITIVE that not choosing “sex” was a missed opportunity! Especially when you consider all the over-the-top, kinky extravagant contraptions they’ve devised to put spiders on her. Missed opportunity, man.
You eventually get glimpses of the other people being subjected to their own fears in the most unnecessarily-industrialized ways possible. That’s kinda fun. Still don’t know who these guys are, or their intent, but it’s all science’tactic and has something to do with phobias… and changing DNA… and making babies. It gets weird. Essentially, a group of Scientology sorts are going around the globe looking for people with ancient space alien DNA in them, and they think “If we tie them up and scare them a whole lot, I’m pretty sure they’re going to turn into one of us awakened space aliens.” Fun movie, though, despite its not-great’ness.
It’s… not great. However, I watch a lot of not-great movies and I like them just fine because I have no taste and even less shame.
Rupture gets a load of shitty reviews, to be sure, and many of them aren’t wrong. The movie has issues, it’s derivative and klunky, the plot makes so real sense at all, but I enjoyed watching it anyway. It’s not going to do anything for Rapace’s career, though, which seemed to stall-out more than a decade ago, but isn’t the worst thing I put into my eyes this week.