There are a number of different ways to deliver scares with films. Sometimes, they'll rely on causing viewers to leap with jump-scares, and others, films will attempt to make you think or surprise you.
Some of the scariest movies, however, are generally those that are based in truth.
Captors is that sort of film; a horror/thriller about sex trafficking, the film goes for a different angle to show the psychotic break of the captive under the serial killer's control, and also flirts with Stockholm Syndrome.
We chatted with lead actress Yulia Klass, and she had the following passionate comments to make about the film and the research she did to prepare for her role. We've included the audio version of our chat, while the video version is below the transcript.
"This is a story about a young female that was sex trafficked into this country and was sold into slavery to a serial killer. She eventually escapes as a kid and then ten years later she's being lured back into the same location without knowledge.She didn't know she was deceived, and then when she gets there a bunch of crazy situations happen, we don't know what's real and what's not. It definitely messes with your head, it's very psychological. We see very clearly all the horrors all the horrors
We did a lot of research both the director and I. We interviewed psychologists and victims of abuse. It's a very challenging situation to be in and those who are lucky enough to survive this, they're forever changed. They have to live with the fear the rest of their life no matter how hard they work on it. They have to live with depression and hallucinations. And the big thing in this film is also stockholm syndrome, whereby the victim basically starts loving or positively thinking about the person who is holding them in captivity.
I didn't have too many people reaching out, I had some people who reached out and thanked me for portraying this character from the side that will never be shown. A lot of times when we think of sex trafficking or watch anything online or in films, anything, most of it is just talking about how people actually sex traffick, but not a lot of them are talking about the psychiatric damage that is done to them permanently. So I had people who reached out to me - just a few people so far. For some I think it's a little traumatic to relive. Of course this is an overly exaggerated story but we don't know what kind of situation they were in because most of them die. Most of them die and never make it to this world, they die in captivity.
The more you learn, the more you do your research, the more you realize how big this problem is in today's world. And it's everywhere. It's a global issue everywhere in the world. China is number one for this issue. And America is not at the top of the list but it's there. Florida, California, and a bunch of other states here are in trouble. And these are big states where these transactions happen. And unfortunately there are a lot of people in this world who support this by paying money for the services. And it's a global problem that is not addressed enough and I don't know how many more years it will take. It will never be enough in my opinion just because not a lot of people make their voices heard.
What I was studying in my research, and James, our goal was to study the behaviours, the PTSD situations where people had already survived certain abusive situations, slaveries, etc. And pyschologists who had interviews and sessions with these patients. And statistics is always out there in terms of the top country in the world for sex trafficking, everybody knows that. But I'm talking about almost clinical research. Asking doctors from their experiences if they can share certain general behavioral elements of this particular recovery."
The incredibly talented Yulia Klass joins us for this episode, and we learn an awful lot.
Yulia isn't from the states and so she had to learn accents when coming here in order to act which was very interesting to hear about, plus she gave us a taste of her Spanish and British dialects that she's working on.
Mainly we talked about Captors, her newest film which focuses on Sex Trafficking from the view of the actual person being taken as well as Stockholm Syndrome and all of the psychosis and trauma involved in being a part of such an event.
Yulia went deep in detail about the research she did for Captors and why the film was and is so important to her. Beyond the film, we also chatted about her last movie, Death Rider In The House of Vampires, in which she acted alongside Danny Trejo and we also talked about her working alongside Bruce Willis right before he ended his career.
Obviously, there's a lot to unpack so the best thing would be to take a listen and keep your eyes peeled for the youtube version to hit next with the full video attached!
Captors released on May 24th and is available to view on digital.