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DVD Identity
With an ace up its sleeve, Identity does for schizophrenia what The Silence of the Lambs did for fava beans and a nice chianti. On the proverbial dark and stormy night, this anxiety-laced thriller offers a tasty blend of And Then There Were None and Psycho, with a dash of Sybil for extra spice and psychosis. Things go from bad to worse when 10 unrelated travelers converge at an isolated motel and proceed to die, one by one, with no apparent connection... until they discover the common detail that's drawn them into this nightmare of relentless trauma. Even as it flunks Abnormal Psychology 101, Michael Cooney's screenplay offers meaty material for a superior ensemble cast including John Cusack and Rebecca DeMornay (who wins the Janet Leigh prize in a bitchy comeback role). Director James Mangold pivots the action around one character (played by his Heavy star, Pruitt Taylor Vince, in eye-twitching cuckoo mode), and half the fun of Identity comes from deciphering who's who, what's what, and who'll be the next to die. --Jeff Shannon
Alright, i live in Hong Kong and this movie was never put on the widescreen here. I bought this DVD just out of its cast. From reading the description at the sleeve of the DVD, i do not expect to get much out of it, assuming just another killer-among-the-group-in-a-contained-place sort of movie. But as it turns out, it makes my jaw drops.
Going through the review before writing this one down, i do not understand why some of the folks are so mean and critical about the film. If you have a habbit of reading review before making your purchase, you probably won't find one film without a 1-star rating, whether deemed helpful or not.
The point is, if you really have to be so picky, you can always find things to critize. But just do not forget one thing, what you are watching is just a story, and there is one thing in film called the "suspension of disbelief". Not even in reality that you can find all things explainable or logical or even sensible!!! And please do not compare this film with Hitchcock's, for his reputation in psychological thriller has already convinced some part of you to believe his film is great even before the title sequence ends.
Back to the film itself, i am not going to prasie once again for what others did. What i wanted to add is that when the final mystery unfolds, it reallys makes my jaw drops. Surpirse at the same time but also an anti-climax. Beacuse what seems to be the reality is now just a twisted imagination of a convicted murderer, so why cares more what happens in the motel afterthat anyway? With all the suspense gone, i am just waiting to see how the film is going to wrap up without further expectation.
However, i do want to give a merit to the director for his attention to details of the plot. Seldom you will see this kind of film without any contraction in its plot (at least i have found none) Throughout the film, you will see very very subtle evidence hinting towards a more supernatural ending rather than just some fxxp-up psycho who happens to kill people for fun. One point to note is with all these killing, there is hardly any gore at all, so the horror is convinced to you psychologically rather than through some cheap visual violence.
WHO DID WHAT?
This 2003 film is a mystery as well as a horror film. Ten strangers are stranded in a desolate motel on a stormy night. One by one they are getting murdered. It's a classic mystery as the guilt seems to fall on several characters. There's also an interconnected story about a murderer whose psychiatrist is trying to get a last minute reprieve.
John Cusack plays the part of a limousine driver who has once been a cop. Ray Liotta plays a cop who's transporting a prisoner. There's also a newly married couple who argue a lot, a prostitute who's giving up her way of life and another woman who's been injured in a accident as well as her husband and young son who never speaks a word. There's also a strange motel clerk with secrets of his own.
But this is not a usual "whodunit". No way. The connection between the individuals in the motel is much stranger than that. And when this connection is finally revealed, I was annoyed. To my humble tastes, it was too contrived as it wanders into the unknown realms of the human psyche.
Yes, it held my interest. Yes, there was some good acting. But I hated the ending and felt the writer had played a rotten trick on the audience. That's why I can only give this film a lukewarm recommendation.
A surprisingly freaky movie with a very unpredictable ending
Well, I was bored and decided to rent some cheap horror movie for some laughs and so forth. But, then guess what happened. This movie rocked!!!!!!! The movie is about strangers that all gather at a motel because of a terrible storm. There's the newly weds, the beautiful prostitute (played by Gorgeous Amanda Peet!), a couple with a child but the wife is mortally wounded, a cop and his prisoner, an ex cop now limousine driver, a rich snob, and of course the owner of a motel. But, all of these characters have secrets and when one by one, they start getting murdered, something weird's going on. The ending is highly unpredictable with a great twist. This movie is one great suspense/ horror movie with some very freaky moments and the stellar cast includes John Cusack, Ray Liotta and Amanda Peet. This horror movie is a must see.
Johnny Depp gets high off another acting challenge in this tricky adaptation of a Stephen King yarn. Although the mood is too sinister to allow for the mischief of his Pirates of the Caribbean turn, Depp still manages to embroider his role here with plenty of quirky business. He plays a writer, depressed and nearly divorced, who's stuck in an isolated cabin (shades of The Shining) when a stranger (John Turturro) arrives, accusing him of plagiarism. Writer-director David Koepp (Stir of Echoes) does his best to make the rickety material compelling--he gets the maximum out of the cabin set, for instance--but the problems inherent in the King story eventually win out. The climactic scenes are particularly unpleasant, especially in contrast to the cleverness of Depp's... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Johnny Depp - John Turturro - Maria Bello Director(s): David Koepp DVD Release Date: Released the 22 June 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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With a plot that might've been lifted from The X-Files, nothing is quite what it seems in The Forgotten, a psychological conspiracy thriller with Julianne Moore doing fine work as a grieving mother whose nine-year-old son was killed in a plane crash. At least, that's what she's been led to believe, but when even her husband (Anthony Edwards) tries to convince her that she's delusional and never had a child, things start to get very spooky indeed. Dominic West (from HBO's superb series The Wire) plays a similarly traumatized father, and when they witness some very strange events--and a mysterious man (Linus Roache) who might be indestructible--this glorified B-movie potboiler directed by Joseph Ruben (best known for Dreamscape and The Stepfather)... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Julianne Moore - Dominic West Director(s): Joseph Ruben DVD Release Date: Released the 18 January 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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It's not the scary hit that The Ring was in 2002, but The Grudge makes a similarly convincing case for American remakes of popular Japanese horror films. Barely a year passed between the release of Takashi Shimizu's creepy ghost story Ju-On: The Grudge and the production of this American remake, set in Tokyo and starring Sarah Michelle Gellar in her first post-Buffy horror film. About the only significant difference between the two films is the importing of a mostly-American cast (including Bill Pullman, Clea DuVall and Grace Zabriskie), but The Grudge was reconfigured (by screenwriter Stephen Susco) to allow Shimizu to refine and improve the spookiest highlights of his earlier version, which enjoyed previous incarnations as a short film and two... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Sarah Michelle Gellar - Jason Behr - Clea DuVall Director(s): Takashi Shimizu DVD Release Date: Released the 01 February 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Saw opens with a gruesome scenario: Two men are chained to the walls of a grimy bathroom with a bloody corpse lying on the floor between them. Tape recordings tell them that one of the men has to kill the other, or his wife and child will die. The corpse is holding a gun in one hand, but it's out of reach...but whoever has locked these two up has thoughtfully provided a hacksaw that can't cut through the heavy chain, but might cut through a little flesh and bone. From there, Saw jumps back and forth as the two men slowly unravel how they know each other and that their tormentor is one of those all-knowing, all-capable serial killers (it goes without saying that Saw is hugely influenced by Seven and the movies of Dario Argento), a fellow known as Jigsaw who... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Leigh Whannell - Cary Elwes - Danny Glover Director(s): James Wan DVD Release Date: Released the 15 February 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Steeped in gloomy atmosphere, Frailty locates its horror in the tyranny of religious fanaticism. Making an assured directorial debut, actor Bill Paxton costars as a Texas widower who believes God has recruited him to destroy demons in human form. Feeling divinely justified in committing a series of ax murders (discreetly unseen), he urges his two young sons to assist him in the killings--a living nightmare recalled in flashback by one of the now-adult sons (Matthew McConaughey) to the FBI agent (Powers Boothe) who's investigating the murders. But mystery is of secondary importance in Brent Hanley's cleverly twisting screenplay; Frailty suggests, with unsettling subtlety, that Paxton's mission may not be delusional, thus burdening his deadly wrath with spiritually disturbing... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Bill Paxton - Matthew McConaughey Director(s): Bill Paxton DVD Release Date: Released the 17 September 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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