Pulpmovies Reviews

The Bet opens with a shot of a dingy hallway in a run down apartment block. A door opens and a woman (Courtney Gardner-Stavros) – bound and gagged – is dumped in the hallway. The opposite door opens and she is dragged inside.

And so it goes on, with the woman being passed between the two men (Lou Diamond and Walt Turner), each of whom keeps her for exactly one minute.

The Bet is based on a short story, written by Michael Dunn, that was published in Thirteen, a UK horror magazine. That story, in turn, was based on a recurring nightmare that Dunn’s now wife had as a teenager. And the film retains a dream-like logic throughout – dark, surreal and very open to interpretation.

It’s this openness that gives the film much of its strength as the nature of the game between the two men is slowly revealed, and the personalities of the characters gradually emerge, gradually drawing you further and further into their world.

The acting here is superb throughout and the three characters manage to make a very simple premise utterly engrossing. This is doubly impressive once you consider how little is said.

The cinematography deserves a mention here for adding hugely to downbeat and dirty atmosphere of the experience, as does Michael Dunn’s eye for a striking shot, which comes together visually to tell us almost as much about the characters as the actors do.

Overall, this is a well paced, intelligent and genuinely disturbing film that trusts its audience to be capable of understanding – or interpreting - what is being shown without feeling the need to spoon-feed every plot point to the audience. As such it’s a film that improves with each viewing.

But what really sets The Bet apart is the atmosphere of grimy desperation that pervades the entire film – not just for the woman, but also for the two men. These are people who really have reached the end of the line and have no way out, as is powerfully underlined with the film’s closing scene.

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