Average Horror Movie

Rating: Null/10 (5 August 2003)

The interesting thing about this movie, was how the movie seemed to lose my focus the further it progressed. The beginning of the movie was excellent, and gave an intriguing background to the main character of the story. However, as the movie progressed. There seem to be two different kinds of horror movies in my book. First, there are the kinds with either "tasteful" violence or no violence and really rely on the ability of the director to produce the great effects of the movie. The other type is the gruesome bloodbath variety, which is acceptable in a movie in which it is necessary. American Psycho had violence that really isn't best described as a bloodbath, but more along the lines of 8MM, the truly utterly disturbing and disgusting variety. Dismembered corpses and people being hacked to death make sporadic appearences in the movie, but they really do not have much of an effect other than to impose the gore of the movie. This movie really tries to be a tasteful blood bath, which doesn't work out in theory or practice, and suffers because of it.
That being said, Christian Bale does a good if not great job. However, much of the other acting in the movie is uninspired and does not lend him a hand. Willem Dafoe has definately made better performances than this. The second best acting job in the movie probably belongs to Reese Witherspoon, but she does not appear often enough to make her performance have a profound effect on the movie. The largest problem in the movie is probably the direction. With almost no change at all, the movie changes from in intriguing mental piece to collage of gruesome deaths and axe murderings. Had the second half of the movie spent more time examining the psyche of the characters and less time dismembering them, this movie would have been better.
That being said, this movie certainly is not bad and can be quite enjoyable for many viewers.
Rating: C+