Not as Whumpy as They Sound
Movies that seem deceptive or at least disappointing in the amount of whump they actually contain, compared to how whumpy the trailer/synopsis/etc sound.
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- DirectorRobert M. YoungStarsBruce DavisonJosé PérezNathan GeorgeA child molester sent to prison finds that criminals exact harsher justice than society.It's a prison movie, right? Those are always good for some whump, right? Well, not this one. This one's got a looooooot of talking, bantering, milling about and even some singing... and hardly any whump at all.
The description makes it sound like it's going to be a whump-fest aimed at the "Short Eyes" character... and they do give that guy a swirly and eventually murder him, but that's about a combined 5 minutes of the film and the rest is... Oh my God, it's so boring. - DirectorTalia LugacyStarsRosario DawsonChad FaustMarcus PatrickA college co-ed is brutally raped and struggles alone to rebuild her life.Revenge movies are great, aren't they? Well, not this one. The "revenge" part is relegated to only the last ten minutes or so, and it is, bar none, the most boring act of violence against a man that I have ever seen. The actual revenge rape scene goes on for 7 minutes straight of slapping noises, lame comments and flip flopping between two ultimately uninteresting camera angles.
It's not a bad movie, per se, but it's NOT recommended for whumpers looking for some man-in-peril stuff. - DirectorDan GoldenStarsAdrienne BarbeauMaria FordKevin AlberIn 19th Century France, a young Bram Stoker is captured by a man-hating, all-female cult of thong bikini wearers. Aided by flesh-eating rats, the warrior women raid the lairs of evil men and punish them. Our hero must decide between his wish to escape the dangerous cult and his love for one of its members.Okay, I'm not really sure what I was expecting here, given the description, promo shots and trailer. What I GOT was some vaguely amusing schlock with women wearing comically inappropriate bikinis and a handsome guy with long hair abducted, abused and chained for maybe about 10 minutes or so.
As whump content goes, those 10 minutes near the beginning were actually quite enjoyable, but I definitely don't recommend watching the entire film if you're just after some whump. Just watch the first bit and give up once he gets let out of the cell by the Queen to become their writer. - DirectorFlorian GallenbergerStarsEmma WatsonDaniel BrühlMichael NyqvistA young woman's desperate search for her abducted boyfriend draws her into the infamous Colonia Dignidad, a sect nobody has ever escaped from.Abducted boyfriend! Bad ass Emma Watson infiltrates inescapable cult to save him! Sounds great! Sign me up!! Admittedly, this was a great film that kept my attention and was well-acted, but the synopsis makes it sound way whumpier than it actually is. That abducted boyfriend IS tortured near the beginning of the film and then held in the cult's compound, yes, but after the initial shock torture he's put through, he spends almost the entire rest of the film acting like the torture had rendered him "simple" (for lack of a better term). The majority of the film is centered on Watson's character and HER struggles and strife in the compound.
So I signed up for an abducted boyfriend being tortured and held by a cult, then getting saved by his girlfriend infiltrating said cult... and ended up with about 10 minutes of boyfriend torture and the rest was Emma Watson angsting and getting smacked around. Again, great film... but not worth watching for the whump. - DirectorTed PostStarsAnjanette ComerRuth RomanMarianna HillA social worker, still reeling from the loss of her architect husband, investigates the eccentric, psychedelic Wadsworth Family, consisting of a mother, two daughters, and an adult son with the apparent mental capacity of an infant.A rare addition to both this list AND my Men Getting Whumped list, this one presents a scenario where the male character is most certainly whumped throughout the entire film - but not in a way that is even remotely enjoyable for whump fans.
The problem is that while the film presents us with a man who is more-or-less tortured his entire life by a malicious mother and two wicked sisters, the film only rarely presents the torture as such. There's one scene where Baby is subjected to a vicious attack with a cattle prod (delivered by the sister played by Susanne Zenor) while she repeatedly 'trains' him that "Baby doesn't stand! Baby doesn't talk!" which certainly shows us the violence and brainwashing he's suffered through to cause him to be in the state he's in - but for nearly the entire rest of the film, his predicament is not presented as something he's really suffering with. He seems, well, blissfully ignorant of just how mistreated he is, which makes the 'whump' aspect negligible at best.
In short, this one's not recommended for whump fans at all, though it's certainly worth a single viewing just so you can say you've seen this truly bizarre cult classic. - DirectorNathan HillStarsCandice DayNaomi DavisSash MilneFive girls kidnap a serial rapist... to seek revenge.Another film that earns placement on this list AND the Men Getting Whumped list. This one is your typical revenge flick, with two successive males being abducted and tortured by a gang of women. The problem, however, is with the filming itself. It's done in a grainy, color-drained "found footage" sort of style... but let's just say that whoever was filming the footage they "found" shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a camcorder or even a cell phone camera. It feels like the camera just jumps from something inane and uninteresting, like the victim's shoes, then to one of the assailants' faces for an extreme close-up, then to one of their hands (whose hand? who knows?) then to fabric that might be a shirt or the bag over someone's head or maybe a blanket someone's granny knitted, back to someone's shoes, another extreme close-up... You get the idea.
I mean, my advice is to check out the trailer. If it doesn't make you shout, "JFC could you focus the camera on something interesting?!" then you might enjoy this movie. If, like me, you don't relish the idea of spending over an hour looking at grainy shots of uninteresting things, then you should probably skip this one. What you can actually see of the whump is absolutely not worth it. - DirectorJ.M CraviotoStarsTina IvlevRichard TysonBianca MalinowskiA young girl, chained in the basement of a sexual predator, escapes and turns the tables on her captor.I'm gonna be honest with you all - I haven't watched this film. And I'm not going to. But it's on this list because it is the PERFECT example of the kind of movies that this list was made for.
The synopsis, right here on IMDB:
"A young girl, chained in the basement of a sexual predator, escapes and turns the tables on her captor."
Well, that sounds like a premise for a man-in-peril film, doesn't it? And yet, the world being what it is... even something that bills itself as being about a woman "turning the tables" on her male captor and presumably holding him captive... somehow ends up being more about the additional female captives of the guy. One of the reviews even comes right out and calls it a "girls in peril" film.
So, in short: Don't fall for the synopsis on this one. It appears to be a women-in-peril film masquerading as a man-in-peril film. - DirectorGore VerbinskiStarsDane DeHaanJason IsaacsMia GothAn ambitious young executive is sent to retrieve his company's CEO from an idyllic but mysterious "wellness center" at a remote location in the Swiss Alps, but soon suspects that the spa's treatments are not what they seem.I didn't end up finishing this one. Checked in hoping for some medical / institution whump and ended up with a lot of weird atmosphere... and eventually, a supernatural horror flick about eels and immortal incest. I mean, if you're into that kind of thing, this is probably a pretty good film. I'm just not really into supernatural horror, and despite the creepy clinic setting, there was really nothing here that I WAS into, so I checked out and read the ending on Wikipedia.
- DirectorMalik BaderStarsAshleigh CraigCody HamiltonLucas TillA secret admirer's crush on a high school athlete takes a fatal turn.Granted, our whumpee in this film is stalked for most of the film and abducted/imprisoned for about 20 minutes near the end... but really, this is more of a Fatal Attraction scenario where the friends and acquaintances of the stalkee get it far worse than the stalkee ever does. All Lucas Till's character actually suffers through is a knee injury and those 20 minutes of imprisonment (along with some more damage to his knee) at the end.
That said, I did enjoy the film and I enjoyed trying to figure out who was responsible for what as it progressed. The acting was good all around and I liked it overall. It just wasn't what I would consider a "whumpy" film. - DirectorKevin SmithStarsJustin LongMichael ParksHaley Joel OsmentA brash and arrogant podcaster gets more than he bargained for when he travels to Canada to interview a mysterious recluse... who has a rather disturbing fondness for walruses.I debated on where to put this movie for awhile before I decided to put it... here. Granted, it's a movie about a man in pretty heinous peril throughout the entire film, who is quite horrifically tortured with some extreme body modifications. That all sounds like it would be a shoe-in for my Men Getting Whumped list.
And yet... No. This isn't really *whump* in any sense of the word. This is just straight up body horror with no way-stops along the way for us whumpers to enjoy.
Now, I'm willing to look past a lot of things when it comes to finding whump to enjoy. I can look past ultimate demises and unpleasant gore, so long as there's something in the lead-up to those things that's worth watching.
But that's what's missing here. There's too many attempts at comedy for me to take the initial abduction seriously enough to enjoy it - and the villain just knocks the victim out and we literally "yadda yadda yadda" into the next stage of body horror.
And that body horror comes at the viewer fast and hard. And it's ugly and grotesque in a way that feels like a desperate bid for added shock value.
As a horror film, it's interesting and has some merits. But as a whump film, NOPE. This ain't it at all, fam.