This is a horror movie in the tradition style of horror movies. It’s not the modern torture porn crap that just won’t seem to die (ironically). Well, it has a tiny scene or two that succumb to the modern horror style, but they’re the exception to the rule. Ultimately, this is a well constructed and nicely stylized psychological horror thriller. It’s sad that films like these are dropped unceremoniously into theaters these days. Like the excellent Wind Chill from last year, pretty much nobody else saw this one in the theater either.

Writing: Borrowing more from the likes of Alfred Hitchcock than Eli Roth (thank mighty Zarquon for that fact), this self-contained cat-and-mouse story works quite well. While I’d be a little dubious of being able to lock somebody IN a parking garage so completely (one has to wonder about fire codes and mandatory escape routes), it’s a fun idea to play out.

Production: Nothing wrong with the production values of this film. From the slick cinematography to the nuanced sound design, the film makers squeeze as much out of their limited environment as they can. I could only see somebody like David Fincher making more out of it. Produced and co-written by Alexandre Aja, who did the underrated Silent Hill, the movie has a nice quality.

Cast: The cast of this film is pretty much that of two people. While there are a handful of other actors that have a scene or two here and there, the vast majority of the story is with our two main characters. I’m a fan of Rachel Nichols (of Alias and The Inside), and she doesn’t disappoint as the protagonist of the story. She got a vulnerability and a strength at play in the character (not surprisingly, it’s that balance that she pulled off so well on both The Inside and Alias). Then there’s Wes Bentley, who does an excellent job integrating the charming earnestness side of his antagonist character with the outright psychotic side. I love the little touches he adds to the nice-guy side of his character.

Music: The typically horror genre composer team of tomandandy (Tom Hajdu and Andy Milburn) come through with a fairly genre-standard score that works well enough. Perhaps not quite as slick as other aspects of the production, but it certainly doesn’t fail to work well.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 16th, 2007 at 10:33 pm and is filed under Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.