fun-jump out of your seat movie-but no Oscar winner

Rating: 7/10 (28 July 2007)

I took my 76 year old mother to see this since it was PG13 and my teens had already said it was good and not scary. I am glad she didn't freak out. There were plenty of good jump out of your seat moments. Some were surprises in how they made you jump even when you were expecting something to happen. For me it was otherwise pretty typical. I didn't buy the relationship aspects of the film.(Except the father/son relationship.) The characters-even sadly David Morse's-were underdeveloped. While I can't say anyone did a bad job at all something was lacking. Morse usually plays creepy way creepier than that. I had the feeling he was being held back asked to play a bland murderer. I thought Shai LeBeouf did a very good job, but the characters didn't seem connected to each other at all. The comedic portions were more fully developed-Aaron Yoo was hilarious! I will have to watch for him. I couldn't find motivation for the behaviors of any of the characters except the mom whenever her son would tick her off. Why was the serial killer a killer and why did he have the specific proclivities he had? They spent a lot of time setting up his "work room" and we look at it, but don't know why the items we see are present. There were also some plot issues that seem contrived and convenient--the deer. While the emotional tone was there enough for suspense and lust everything else occurred in an emotional vacuum.