Rod Serling would be proud

Rating: 9/10 (17 January 2005)

I avoided seeing this movie in the theater due to bad reviews and word of mouth. I think I'm glad I did because I, too, probably would have had my impression of the film colored by its false advertising as a horror movie.
This movie is not horror -- at all.
That being said, my wait for it to come to video was free of any misconceptions about what it was. Distanced from the advertising hype and the bad press, I rented it with little or no expectations about what I was going to see.
To my utter delight, what I got to watch was a splendid movie that is a wonderful study of character, mood, suspense, and neat twists that would have made Rod Serling proud. This movie is quintessential "Twilight Zone" material only so much more richer for the excellent performances by virtually every cast member and the script which fleshes out a delicate, multi-layered world. All of this would be very difficult to accomplish in a standard 30-minute TZ episode.
This movie is a wonderful treat that is quite unusual for standard Hollywood fare. One can only hope that in the future, Hollywood will learn how to develop advertising for films so that it can find its proper audience instead of misleading people into thinking they are going to see something completely different.