Abducted Reviews

In 1986 prominent athlete Kari Swenson, while training in the Montana woods, was seized by a father-and-son team of survivalist hermits. The "mountain man" dad had evidently been taking Nietzche much too seriously and judged that Swenson would make a suitable mate for his adult kid, but she escaped and led police to collar her ex-captors. It was a premise tailor-made for sleazy movies, although this Canadian fictionalization is slightly better than expected. Renee Aldrich (Roberta Weiss) is a hapless heroine held by a fur-clad overgrown juvenile delinquent, Verne (Lawrence King Phillips), whose father, Joe (Dan Haggerty), had brought him to the isolated mountains for his own good after too many brushes with the law. Decent-hearted Joe wants do right by both his savage son and the innocent girl, and tries to explain his point-of-view to Renee. But Verne grows violently jealous of his parent's easy rapport with the young woman, and ultimately Joe must shoot his own offspring to protect Renee. Ursine Haggerty, best known for gentle outdoorsy roles like TV's "Grizzly Adams," brings a depth of emotion to his part that ouclasses the plot's repeated sexual assaults (though in addition to all his other faults, Verne is evidently impotent). After assorted other forest flicks, director Collins followed this with a much trashier sequel, ABDUCTED 2: THE REUNION in 1995. (Violence, sexual situations, profanity.)