U.S. label Artsploitation Films has added up two new titles to its Blu-ray catalog: Jonas Govaerts' Cub (2014), starring Maurice Luijten, Evelien Bosmans, and Stef Aerts, and Hans Herbots' The Treatment (2014), starring Geert Van Rampelberg, Ina Geerts, and Johan van Assche.
This dark, bloody imaginative fairy tale about a camping trip that turns into deadly carnage draws on such influences as Lord of the Rings, Friday the 13th and The Devil's Backbone. The story follows 12-year-old outcast Sam who, along with his troop of cub scouts and their teenage supervisors, camp in woods rumored to house a mysterious and deadly werewolf. Inquisitive Sam, certain the woods are inhibited by something evil, soon stumbles upon a feral young boy and, eventually, his evil psychopathic mentor. But convincing the others of the danger falls on deaf ears, and soon ingenious traps begin to take their violent toll on the group. A wildly entertaining "killer in the woods" actioner.
Synopsis: The Treatment is an unsettling Belgian murder mystery that gets under your skin and stays there. A nail-biting suspense yarn based on one of a series of best-selling novels by British crime writer Mo Hayder, the film is not an old-fashioned Agatha Christie-type whodunit, but its gritty themes of sexual violence and pedophilia give it a raw, contemporary intensity that places it in the same company as the "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" book and film series. Police inspector Nick Cafmeyer is investigating a case where a mother and father have been bound and beaten, and their young son is missing. An obsessive loner, Cafmeyer discovers that there are other similar cases – tragedies where the parents were forced by a psychopath to harm their own children, who then vanish. For the inspector, this triggers memories of his own brother's abduction as a child, and the possibility that he may still be alive somewhere. Grim and wholly engrossing, The Treatment is a thriller with an edge.