Captives (1988)

Director:

Gary P. Cohen

Writer:

Gary P. Cohen

Genre:

Drama | Horror

Plot Keywords:

B Movie | Revenge | Shot On Video | Murder | Low Budget

Cast

Mark Benjamin
Neil Cerbone
Gary P. Cohen		(as Gary Cohen)
Lisa Cohen	...	Ellen Epstein
Zachary Cohen
Linda Herman	...	Estelle Epstein
Sussan Kalitan
Denise LeDonne
Art Neil
Jackie Neill	...	Nikki Pellaggio

Directed by
Gary P. Cohen		(as Gary Cohen)

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Gary P. Cohen		(as Gary Cohen)

Produced by
Ray Clark	....	producer

Original Music by
Gordon Ovsiew		(original music by)

Special Effects by
Mark Dolson	....	special effects makeup
Mark Kwaitek	....	special effects makeup

Production Companies

• Little Zach Productions

Distributors

• Camp Motion Pictures (2011) (worldwide) (DVD) (The Basement: Retro 80s Horror Collection)
• Majestic Video (USA) (video)

Also Known As:

"Mama's Home" - USA (video title)

Runtime:

USA:84 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

USA:Unrated

Company:

Little Zach Productions

Majestic Home Video doesn't seem very royal to me!

Not much is known about Majestic Home Video, except that they released a few titles which are extremely tough to find, including this one, thus, no ratings or comments. After 5 years, I finally came across this VHS under the title of "Mama's Home." According to Gary Cohen, who also directed SOV classics Video Violence 1 and 2, Majestic Home Video cut off the intro, threw some music on top of most of the dialogue and manipulated other aspect of the film. This resulted in a travesty that would become one of the most sought after horror VHS's. Good luck finding it.

Majestic Home Video must have operated out of someone's garage or basement because the equipment they used to create the new "Mama's Home" title and credits is completely amateur and shows mistakes that could've been corrected if they had actually cared about what they were doing. A woman is released from prison after being accused of letting her child die in a fire. Once released, her and her two brothers seek revenge. They intend to torment her ex-husband's family and force them to watch home videos that are supposed to prove that it was his fault the child died in the fire. They stay at the house tormenting the family until her ex-husband comes home. This synopsis is pretty much what is explained on the back of the VHS case, so watching the movie is really just a matter of putting the pieces together since its hard to figure out what's going on since you can't really hear any of the dialogue because of the booming music put over it.

I give the movie 5 stars only because I have not seen the actual "Captives" version of the movie. The only thing Majestic did right was have some awesome sleazy artwork and title, despite Cohen's dislike of them which I can understand. Captives was intended to be a serious comment on violence yet it was marketed as a slasher on the front cover, despite the back of the box reading, "Not A SLASHER FILM..." The movie seems to have been shot okay, despite the usual continuity and logic errors which are common with inexperienced SOV filmmakers. But for what I can tell, the movie could have had a lot of potential if Majestic had not butchered it.

UPDATE:

Camp Motion Pictures DVD has released Captives in its original form as part of an 80's SOV box set