Panther Ridge is a short horror film from writer and director Ryan Swantek and shows a woman venturing into underground BDSM films for the first time. She walks into the “dungeon” decked out in leather and boots with a whip on her hip and gets introduced to her lookalike partner in crime, who is obviously more experienced and takes the lead. She soon realizes it is more than she anticipated.
What follows is torture. A whole lot of torture.
From a minute and a half in until the five minute mark, we watch as a man and his significant other are abused in horrific ways while bound for the cameras. Pulling teeth, shocking with a cattle prod, punching, cutting with a giant knife…the women run through almost every classic torture trick in the book until the two victims are finally killed. While I am not sure which films exactly inspired Swantek to make Panther Ridge, the plot is reminiscent of A Serbian Film, minus the story details and sexual perversion.
The film relies heavily on its graphic content, and the practical effects are pretty decent, especially during the teeth-pulling scene. The issue, however, is that there isn’t enough energy or force from the actresses to really sell what we’re seeing. Watching one of the women feebly attempt to behead the male victim with a machete and actually succeeding just doesn’t allow me to stay in the moment.
As a gorehound, I have enjoyed my fair share of excessive blood splatter and torture on screen. However, when these elements get used in a purely gratuitous way without much context, it can be a bit eye-rolling when it isn’t quite pulled off. In fact, I really enjoyed Swantek’s last short film, White Willow, which was over the top gory and had zero story, but was still compelling enough on its own. Panther Ridge seems to have been made purely for shock value, but, unfortunately, it doesn’t really achieve much in the end.
If you would like to watch for yourself, head over to the film’s Facebook page and check it out.
