Twisted

Cast View all

	Neal McDonough
	Alicia Witt
	Djimon Hounsou
	Lauren LaVera
	Gina Philips
	Mia Healey	Smith
	David Call
	Prof
	Michael Lombardi
	Renes Rivera
	Kristina Krasniqi	Jennifer
	Victor Del Rio	Zac
	Hari Bhaskar
	Zac Jaffee
	Isaiah Levi John	Police Officer
	Cynthia Clancy	Old Woman
	Peter Rosaspina	Officer Castiglione
	Cedric Benjamin
	Joseph Fisher	ESU Officer
	Bill Thibeault	Hospital Board of Directors
	Andre Skinner	ESU Officer
	Madeline Hill	Perp Hooker

Crew View all

Director	Darren Lynn Bousman
Writer	Jonathan Bernstein, James Greer
Producer	Lukas Behnken, Jonathan M. Black, Lauren Black, Mark Burg, Tevaughn Campbell, Tom Fanning, David Gendron, James Greer, Lee Nelson, David Tish, Viviana Zarragoitia
Musician	Mark Sayfritz
Photography	Bella Gonzales

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Notes

My quick rating - 4.8/10. There are movies about real estate scams, movies about mad doctors, and movies about terrible people making worse decisions. I watched Twisted, which tries to flip all three at once like a dodgy Brooklyn condo listing with “great bones” and a raccoon in the kitchen.

The setup is stable enough. Two millennials run a slick apartment-flipping con in New York, selling properties they don’t actually own to buyers who don’t realize they’re being scammed. It’s a fun, modern premise that feels like it was ripped straight from a late-night true crime binge and a housing crisis support group. Our con artists are played by Lauren LaVera (Paloma) and Mia Healey (Smith), and let’s just say the casting department did not accidentally pick two extremely photogenic scammers. Subtlety was not invited to this open house.

The slow-burn approach might have completely collapsed under its own artsy seriousness if not for Djimon Hounsou as Dr. Kezian. The one target they absolutely should have skipped. He brings instant gravity and menace to the screen, like he wandered in from a much better, more expensive movie and decided to stay. Once he takes center stage, Twisted at least has a pulse, even if the script’s brain activity is questionable.

If you recognize LaVera, it’s probably from the blood-soaked chaos of the Terrifier films, and fans expecting that deep a stab may feel slighted. The dialogue frequently sounds like it was workshopped by aliens who learned human speech from property scam emails. Conversations don’t flow so much as stumble down the stairs.

There’s a brutal assault-and-fight sequence that’s effective, but it exists mostly to steer the characters into Dr. Kezian’s DIY nightmare clinic, where the movie leans hard into bargain-bin medical horror. The procedures are so wildly implausible that they feel less like science and more like someone angrily assembling IKEA surgery. The central experiment, involving his wife (played by Alicia Witt) and her very unclear brain situation, is murky enough that you stop trying to understand and just nod politely.

A big structural problem. Everyone is awful. The scammers are terrible people. The doctor is a terrible person. The police are…present, technically. Their investigation subplot has all the impact of a muted notification and is basically swept under the rug until the end. No brains, no urgency, no payoff.

Director Darren Lynn Bousman has done sharper work. Horror fans of his entries in the Saw II era will spot a very familiar surgical vibe, and even the messy but interesting Abattoir aimed higher. This one isn’t terrible, but it feels like a rough draft that accidentally got listed as a final pitch. Watchable, flawed, occasionally effective - but definitely not luxury horror. More like “as-is, no inspection.”

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