Dungeon Girl

From Ulli Lommel, the director who has mastered neither porn nor narrative, comes this fusion of the worst of both genres. The mindlessness of porn and the jarring, non-resolution of clumsy narrative are combined in this "to be missed at all costs" disaster of a film. Ever wonder what Hollywood means when they say "Based upon actual events"? That's just their way of saying "Once upon a time". In other words, the tale spun so maladroitly in this film has little in common with the real story. The director seems to have a prurient fascination with the fact that the actual young woman became a "media darling" after her ordeal. My impression of Lommel....hmmm...DaFoe's portrayal of a director in the comedic 2007 Rowan Atkinson film comes pretty close.

This movie is an absolute disaster. It's a lurid melodrama with no sense of plot or purpose. Dungeon Girl is a truly awful movie, not worth the price of a rental. Avoid this at all costs, it's not even worth seeing even just for the sake of seeing how truly bad it is, unless you just happen to be in an extremely masochistic mood. That said, there's a directors commentary on there and since I've already made the mistake of renting the movie, I'm almost tempted to run through the movie again with the commentary playing just to try to figure out what the folks who made this mess of a movie were thinking. Or, at the very least, what they were smoking. I can't really add anything that hasn't already been said about this movie, but I did just want to add my voice to the warnings in the hopes that maybe somebody, somewhere, can save the price of the movie rental and put the 90 or so minutes of their lives they would have spent watching this movie to better use. I should have checked the reviews here before I rented the movie myself. Unfortunately, this seems fairly representative of the quality of movie Lionsgate is releasing these days. Move along, nothing to see here.

I've seen many movies in my day, and many bad ones. "Dungeon Girl" must be the worst, easily.

There is simply nothing good to say about this production. The acting is appalling, the plot non-existent, and the music is beyond description.

Supposedly, the movie is about the abduction and captivity of Natascha Kampusch in Austria a few years ago.

The film starts with a strange mix of references to witches, and the repetition of the phrase "are you a witch"? I never realized exactly why this line keeps recurring throughout the film, which it does. In fact there are so many things in this movie which are left unexplained it's remarkable.

The "story" centers around the girl being held in a basement, or so the title suggests, although the basement seems to be in the attic. The kidnapper is very fond of masturbating with a doll, playing the guitar and singing in really bad German. Apart from this, he cooks soup and gives the girl chocolate. Mixed with this are some odd scenes of flashbacks from the girls' early life which only confuse the viewer.

Summary: A real stinker. Beware, though, the DVD has a rather deceptive cover which can trick you into renting it. Stay away from this one.

What a relief! I watched this on fear.net, so it was free.

I echo the sentiments of virtually every reviewer. This movie promised to be interesting by pretending to be based on the real case in Germany where the man held his daughter captive, molesting and even impregnating her multiple times.

This movie has NOTHING like the news story.

Long story, short....nothing happens in this movie. Yes, the guy kidnaps a girl and keeps her in his "house"? Apart from the rather mundane activities like cooking, playing guitar and reading a bible...there is no activities that contribute to the "plot"!!?? Annoying narration that explains nothing of the motivations by the protagonists. This makes Eraserhead look transparent! An absolute mess! It is incomprehensible how this ever got made or distributed.

I loved Ulli Lommel's early eighties horror films The Boogeyman and The Devonsville Terror. They were great and Tenderness Of The Wolves was at least a real movie with a plot.

This new spate of work is the absolute pits. Remembering the good times, I keep coming back for more punishment, lured by the lurid box art and the promise of explicit content. I keep thinking that maybe the next movie will be better but they only get worse.

Dungeon Girl is the worst one yet. Absolute in its despicable worthlessness, it wallows in its own boredom. Nearly the whole film takes place in a small house where the two characters look at each other and do almost nothing.

I know that there are lovers of bad movies out there that read the horrible reviews and want to see something based on what they read. I must warn you that this isn't one of those movies that are so bad they're good, unless you want very badly to see a middle aged man masturbate. This really is so bad it's awful! I don't say the word unwatchable very often.

You'll probably not listen.