Oh, uh, yeah. Yeah, that was called "acting." **POSSIBLE SPOILER**

Rating: 5/10 (8 November 2004)

Well...
Criminy, I waited for this movie for a while, and I had some hopes about it, ...and some apprehension. Most of the hope came from the fact that Lions Gate Films released the movie, and they're usually pretty good. Look at "Frailty," that movie is outstanding and one of my favorite horror films.
This thing, though...
It's getting compared to "Se7en" pretty often, and that's extremely misleading. "Se7en" is the horror film equivalent to a work of art, this is the horror film equivalent to, well, actually it's pretty standard Hollywood fodder. Here's the breakdown:
The Good:
--The ending is actually surprising, somewhat, it was fairly original.
--The creepiness is decent.
--The story wraps around itself and everything is relevant, and that's good.
--Some decent violence/gore.
--Set design.
The Bad:
--The writing and direction seem amateurish. The police characters discover "the killer" and his locale with trite ease.
--The gore and violence; there are hints of more and better scenes, but they never show.
--There's a lot of clichés to deal with.
--The ending is also pretty, well, disappointing. The only good part is that it's not exactly predictable.
The Inevitable Ugly:
--The acting is pretty damn bad, I mean, it gets pretty awful pretty often. ...From every character except maybe the killer and Monica Potter (but she has about 4 lines).
--The story is filled with holes and questions that, if you think about them, may really annoy you... "How did he get audio enhancement from a video he was just watching?" Little things like this. And if you've seen CSI, the police work seems just ignorant and unsophisticated.
--The director clearly didn't know how to make really intense scenes, so to make up for his lack of artistic vision, we get to deal with putrid "crazy fast motion" camera work. This occurs A LOT and is about as annoying to watch pretty much all non-Matrix bullet-time.
If you're a horror fan, you might want to take a look. If you think big-time Hollywood always does great with horror films (crap like "Jeepers Creepers" or "feardotcom" or "I Know What You Did Last Scream While Urbaning the Legend of Valentine During Your Final Destination"), you'll unfortunately love it. But if you're expecting the sophistication of "Se7en" or "Frailty," forget it.
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