You Must Be Joking

Rating: Null/10 (1 May 2003)

This movie has an average of over 7? You must be joking. Perhaps these people saw a different movie than I did.
This is such a terrible movie that words fail me. It is nothing more than a haphazard mish-mash of elements from several other movies, none of which retain any of their power. The screenwriter is actually ballsy enough to even throw in "it was built on an Indian burial ground!" as a red herring. And he's being serious!
This movie reinforces my belief that there must be a moratorium placed on stories about multiple personality disorder (MPD). It is a notion that Hollywood hacks have fallen in love with, largely because they are unimaginative and uncreative. Whenever a movie is advertised as having a "twist" nowadays, you can rest assured it will either be MPD, or that the main character is in fact a ghost. Give it a rest.
This film again reveals two major problems with Hollywood constructions: falling in love with a result and working backwards from it. Hack screenwriters love the MPD spin, because it lets them do all kinds of "effective" scenes and tricks, like showing one face while another voice is speaking. Spooky! The writer and director don't care how they get to the effect, they just want the result in their movie. It's like a demo reel, or a fisheye effect in a rap video.
The movie is not exciting, scary, or the least bit compelling. The horror is strict fright movie cliche (woman looking over her shoulder while walking forwards and bumping into someone she knows, people grabbing each other's shoulders and jumping, etc). And the MPD story is strictly by-the-numbers. If you've seen a movie before and have half a brain, you'll figure out the ending within 15 minutes. I spent more time counting plot holes and inconsistencies. The psychobabble may get the liberals yakking (although I'm not sure why it's okay to execute a sane murderer but not a crazy one, aren't they more dangerous?) The movie barely hits the 90 minute mark, including previews and credits, yet it still feels overlong.

Please, learn from my mistake and just avoid it. Don't waste your time.