Worst limo ride ever.
The Glass Coffin is another independent horror film that relies on a gimmick. This time around, we follow an actress named Amanda (Paola Bontempi) who is on her way to accept a lifetime achievement award. However, the limo she enters is actually a trap set by a nameless villain who plans on tormenting Amanda for reasons that are slowly given over the film.
The film is sparse—we are in the back of a limo for more than 90% of the ride, but it is never boring. Albeit, the film is sometimes predictable. There is a certain level of vapid-ness in the reasoning that is hard to ignore. I won’t give spoilers here, but the reveal is a little disappointing.
Bontempi does an excellent job throughout, but her skills can’t make this pretty standard torture-flick transcend its genre moorings. I hate the term torture porn, as it seems to be misused and overused too much, but I can see how it used here. The torture almost exclusively has a sexual tone to it, and despite the narrative reasoning, the film is still a bit sleazy.
Where discussions of the film will ultimately hit a dead-end is that the entire plot hinges on a do the ends justify the means sort of process. If you find the reasoning to be absurd, too much, or simply unbelievable, the film offers very little. The reasoning is difficult to agree with—there can be some empathy (perhaps a lot of empathy), but there isn’t really a justification.
There isn’t a lot to say about this movie. If watching a woman be tortured and humiliated in the back of limo sounds like a good movie, check this one out. Otherwise, you aren’t missing much. 4/10.
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