Fantastic...up to a point.

Rating: 6/10 (22 April 2006)

For the first hour or hour and a half of this movie, you'll be mesmerized. This part of the film is completely fantastic. The mood and atmosphere are perfectly laid out, and are very close, if not the exact same as the games. The set up for the climax and end are great. The scene in the school with Red Pyramid will leave you completely nerve-racked.
Then something strange happens. Rose enters the room in the hospital with her daughter. The history of her daughter is then fully revealed. And the movie turns to total crap. From here on out there is really no suspense going into the climax and end at all.
I have a tolerance for gore, but the level of gratuitous gore in the death of Cybil and final confrontation scene is ridiculous. There is no point in it. It doesn't even really recognize the sheer bloodbath as something wrong, just the revenge of the girl. Dhalia does say "What have you become?", but the line seems very much carelessly thrown in. Even if this scene were actually fun or thrilling, it would be excusable. But its not, its just gratuitous gore. The final end of the film is also completely underwhelming and its obvious attempts to regain its psychological interest from the first part simply fall flat.
Its really disappointing to see such a great first part and set up fall so low in the end. It could have been so much more. But the first part is so great, it can carry six stars on its own and is definitely worth watching.
If you want a mature handling of gore, like this movie should have done, see Se7en. If you want gore that's actually fun, see Slither or any George Romero or Evil Dead movie.