Abducted, locked in a basement and strapped to a dentist’s chair by a madman: it’s the sort of situation Elisha Cuthbert should be used to as Kim Bauer, the perpetually imperilled annoyance of TV’s 24.

Alas, daddy’s not around to rescue Jennifer, Cuthbert’s latest damsel-in-distress.

Jennifer’s face has launched a thousand magazines, but it’s about to be made unrecognisable by a methodical stalker who spikes her drink at a swanky party and imprisons her in a windowless room.

Her confusion turns to terror when she’s knocked out again and wakes up in a nightmarish surgery. A TV screen next to her shows a young woman occupying exactly the same place. Above her is a showerhead. She is screaming. Then the shower begins… and it’s Jennifer’s turn to scream.

Later, the cowled maniac casually tips various pieces of a human head into a blender, adds a pint of blood and funnels the puree down Jennifer’s throat. Nice.

And let’s just say that her fluffy pet poodle’s loyalty is poorly rewarded.

But just as all hope seems lost, Jennifer is contacted from behind a painted glass wall by fellow victim Garry (Daniel Gillies, Mary-Jane’s forgotten fiancé from Spider-Man 2). Whatever happens, at least she is not alone.

Alternating between the sicko’s playroom and Jennifer’s cell, Joffe is unrelenting with the initial mental and physical assault.

So it comes as a great relief when writer Larry Cohen (the B-movie specialist behind Phone Booth and Cellular) lances the tension with a twist so obvious you’d have to put your eyes in a blender not to see it coming.

Intensity gives way to idiocy as hunter and hunted (and cops) become embroiled in a ‘who’s the most hapless?’ contest, stumbling around and making life difficult for themselves in generic house-of-horror fashion.

As another entry in the current ‘torture porn’ cycle (the Saws, the Hostels, Paradise Lost, Vacancy), Captivity spews up its share of squirms and splatter.

But despite nods to The Shining and Halloween, there is no cleverness at work here. It simply panders to the worrying global fascination for watching innocents suffer.

Without the slightest, blackest hint of humour, it’s about as entertaining as downloading executions from the internet.

Elliott Noble