Roth is one sick bastard, but he achieved his goal

Rating: 9/10 (17 September 2005)

I am not a big "gore" fan but I love a tense horror movie in which the director creates vivid images in your mind. This movie has both. I was a little surprised how good the story was and how good the actors (all of which were pretty much no-names)were. There is a scene by one of the lead male actors which will stay in your head well after the movie. I watched it at the TIFF at the 12:45pm show and I was at the edge of my seat. The plot was well-developed although I thought that the Director shouldn't have revealed the protagonist as early as he did in the movie and could have developed his reasons for doing what he did more fully. The ending was very good, but didn't hold up to the suspense and action immediately preceding it - the Director said he had a few other endings but felt screened audiences didn't like the other alternatives. In any event, I actually found myself turning away twice in the movie (I never do). There is some major disturbing stuff in this movie and Roth achieved his objective of making the scariest, sickest movie I have seen. What I did like was although the stuff was sick, it was actually plausible - that's the scary part. Sort of like what Friedkin did with the Excorcist - the scary part was that it made you think this crap was possible. Highly recommend this for the gore/horror fans, but I have a feeling that the studio distributor will demand cuts to the film. If it does get cut significantly, I am not sure if you will feel the same impact, but I guess time will tell. Roth mentions it will gain wide theatrical release around November.