Oh my God. How TERRIBLE can a movie get?

Rating: 1/10 (11 January 2008)

I saw this film in seventh grade. And liked it. i even brought myself to comparing it to "The Silence of the Lambs" at one point. How? i don't know. I thought of it in such a way i even showed it to one of my friends about two months later and told him it was better than Dawn of the Dead. For this i should be tarred and feathered. BUT, upon this second viewing, i started to notice things. Things that I didn't notice the first time. That viewing took me to a place i have only been to on two other occasions, but I won't get into that now. I'll just say that when the movie was over i had to apologize to my friend for lying and rethink this movie over and over.
The first aspect of this movie i hated was the editing. Are we watching MTV or what? i beg one of you readers to count how long the longest shot in one of the escape scenes is. You won't touch 4 seconds. Maybe 3. Perhaps the tension would build a little bit if the camera relaxed and waited for a human being who is not on speed to catch up with it. At least that way we know what we're afraid of instead of picturing the 1/100 second flashes of the "scary things".
The acting was atrocious and not in a charming horror movie way. The second leading man can't do a thing to cover up a British accent and Cary Elwes gave one of the worst performances in cinematic history. Why would the casting department hie a man who can't give a cry of pain to save himself from a real cry of pain. And Danny Glover? Does anything even need to be said? YES! What a bad role for even an "only good in one movie(Tenenbaums)" actor. We see know descent into madness. This is most likely because of the poor and pathetic writing or the sub-par performance given for a sub-par movie.Come to think of it, I can't think of one actor in this movie who I'd like to see in anything else unless they were playing a struggling and out of work actor. Ironic?
Now for the development flaws. I'll start with the obvious one. how can it be that two healthy men can sit in a room for hours with a dead man WHO IS BREATHING? Do they expect us to buy that? An idiot maybe(Which isn't saying much for Saw fans). Not to mention that they spent a good amount of time near the beginning of the film focusing directly on "the dead man". Next, the killer's whole "philosophy" about how he doesn't actually kill people, he causes people to kill themselves. What? My metaphor is that if you put a landmine in the front yard of a day-care center and wait for recess, you didn't do anything wrong. It's the kid's fault they walked onto the landmine that you put there. Who honestly thinks this makes sense? Be honest. Also, this killer claims to give everyone a chance to get out of his traps. But Dr. Gordon has to kill Adam in order to get out and save his family. This gives Adam what kind of chance? On the tape, never does our killer mention a way for Adam to be saved. This goes against his whole philosophy. The flashback in which the girl is let free: There are numerous things that bother me about this sequence. For one, the principle that i applied to the Adam situation applies to the drugged stranger laying on the floor with his stomach cut open. Also, the cancer-ridden killer is somehow able to rig up a "creepy" doll to ride a tricycle and turn its head? That's just unrealistic for lack of a better word. Last but certainly not least, she later says that he helped her. Why? Because he got her off drugs? I know about drug-addicts and an experience like that would not want to make them do less drugs. And this helps her better than, say, rehab? Also, if this helping principle is applied to every case, how does it apply to Dr. Gordon and Adam's situation. Will killing a virtually innocent human being help a man with his infidelity problems? Cheating on your wife is not nearly as bad as killing a man. Apparently, I disagree with the killer. Too bad.
What was Adam's wrong-doing in the first place?
Why would a man who is just an orderly at a hospital who appears to be the killer at first, but soon is rectified take pleasure in tying up a mother and daughter at gunpoint? Not only does he do that, but he listens to the girls heartbeat as he points the gun at her mother's head. What was cause this guy to think that his killer is the only possessor of the antidote to his poison? I'd rather go for help hoping that the cure isn't Tridium. And even if the killer DID have the only antidote, how would a cancer-ridden old man obtain possession of such a rare substance. And it never thoroughly explains what Zep did to deserve such shabby treatment from the killer.
Finally, The Twist. OOOHHH! How surprising! Why? Because we, as an audience don't expect a man whose living should have been apparent to our two main characters hours earlier. The movie all builds up to these two words.......Game Over! But not my review. No. How is the game over? We've left a still alive Adam, mother, daughter and Dr. Gordon unspoken for. OK, we can assume that the killer kills Dr. Gordon, but what about the rest of the characters? Once again, the movie leads up to "Game Over". Probably because this movie accomplishes about as much for the film industry as a bad Video Game that no one remembers. Wait, What's the difference?