Radha in cuffs!

Rating: 4/10 (26 April 2006)

Greetings again from the darkness. I have no idea if you have to be familiar with the video game to appreciate this mess of a movie, but I do know it was a major disappointment. A horror film cannot be plodding, boring and void of chills, thrills and frights.
Some individual scenes had a touch of coolness and the premise of a sleepwalking kid saying the name of a ghost town has plenty of potential. The problems start and never end once the mom (played well enough by the talented Radha Mitchell) and kid arrive in the foggy, dusty, zombie-religious freak filled town. The normally solid Laurie Holden ("X-Files") is just plain terrible as an over the top, oh-so-caring motorcycle cop. She may be the creepiest thing in the film. Uber-cool Sean Bean is just plain wasted in his limited role. On top of everything else, the music and score are not up to the task and make a dull film even slower.
Wasted potential is always a shame and I realize fans of the video game are loving this movie, but most any fan of horror films will be very disappointed and will probably find themselves chuckling quite often. The only time you will jump out of your seat will be when the movie finally ends.