This is about as low budget as it gets. The acting is at best mediocre, and at its worse, plain terrible. And yet a couple of characters manage to elicit sympathy. Robert Posey even approaches something resembling charming likability on a couple of occasions (at least, I wouldn't kick him out of bed on a cold night).
Direction and camera work is cliched at best, and sloppy at worst, as is the writing and editing. Yet I willingly watched the film to its predictable end. Most of the film is glacial character ... um ...familiarisation. The action all happens in the third act. The perpetrator's identity is obvious pretty-well immediately, and any attempt to rotate through diversions and misdirections is managed ham-fistedly. There is nothing scary about the slicing and dicing in this gorefestlet, and scenes that try for tension are as phoned in as the film's many prank calls. But somehow, somehow, this film remains fun. Maybe it gets away with being so bad that it's good. Or at least not offensively devoid of any likability. Or maybe I just had a thing for Posey. We shall never know.
