The Stranger Within - L'Inganno

I honestly cannot even be bothered to waste my time and effort with a detailed review on this film as it's just stolen an hour and a half of my life watching this abomination. The acting was horrific, the storyline just didn't make sense, no explanation of anything that went on, just the whole thing was a joke.

Well I actually did not require a doctor to realize The Stranger Within was going to be painful to watch. Why oh why do I continue to subject myself to films who are written and then directed by the same person. In this case the perpetrator is a guy named Adam Neutzky- Wuff. Adam's prior director experience is limited to television and I assume he must have thought this film would go direct to DVD which it obviously warranted to avoid a box office flop.

This so called thriller evolves around the married couple Psychiatrist Robert played by William Baldwin and his wife, who happens to play a stage and star actress named Emily, played by Estella Warren. Emily is such a great tortured soul that she tortured me while I waited for the movie to come to a resounding end, and the only sound I heard besides a terrible melodramatic soundtrack was the sound of another flop!

Emily has an affair with her best friend's lover, and shortly after Emily's best friend turns up dead. Poor poor Emily then gets kidnapped by a hooded stranger who subjects poor Emily to 5 days of rape and torture. The director Adam Neutzky-Wuff must know a few things about torture because that is what he subjects his audience in to watching.

Emily's husband Robert convinces her that they need to get away from all this trauma so they rent a beautiful villa with a great scenic and panoramic view (which happens to be the only reason I rated this a 3) to help Emily forget about her fear and the hallucinations she has been experiencing since the death of her best friend.

No thriller would be complete without an unexpected young and attractive damsel in distress appearing out of nowhere, seeking the assistance of the great Psychiatrist Robert to help her get over the so called accidental death of her husband who fell off the cliffs that overlook Robert and Emily's beautiful villa. The stranger within is actress Sarah Butler, who plays Sarah. Is this going to end up being a love triangle, or is there a murderer amongst the four occupants? Did I say four occupants, when only three have been introduced? That is because Emily's male friend Michael, played by Jeffrey Pierce just shows up whenever the director feels like adding him in to his script but doesn't explain why Michael just seems to disappear from the film after each of his brief scenes with Emily.

The ending could not come soon enough. As a child who places his hand to close to a heated element on the stove top, if you want to avoid getting burned as I did with The Stranger Within, then heed my rating of 3 out of 10.

The acting is wooden, the film recycles every dull horror cliché in the book, and the story makes no sense from beginning to end. The dialogue is completely implausible, and the only reason to watch this dog of a film is to laugh at its ineptitude. I would have no hesitation in including this film in a top ten of the worst I have seen in the past decade.

It started off alright, but then it started to become boring. They have this scene in the beginning with trauma to her, but the rest of the movie goes in a different direction as if it was a different story. The lead actress, sorry, but she needs sleep needs to stop doing drugs/drinking before her scenes. No one ones to see under eye bags. She also was terrible portraying her character. I figured out the plot, but this movie still didn't make sense. I guess we were supposed to be scared maybe? Not sure. The filming locations were beautiful. Just not sure about the uneven story line. Leaves questions and not the good kind.

Stilted acting, an unconvincing storyline, a script that could have been written by a fourth-grader, hackneyed horror film tropes (zombie imagery, etc), and phony picture-perfect makeup/costume design are all topped-off with a distractingly pervasive soap operatic soundtrack. The cover blurb states that this film is "A dark and twisted psychological thriller!"; however, the "psychology" of it all is pretty rudimentary.

On the other hand, the cinematography is well-done despite the very low budget. No matter how limited the scope, there is some nice Balearic Islands scenery, and Sarah Butler, as tormented house-guest "Sarah," strips briefly in order to spice things up. Finally, there is some attempt at a twist, even if it's not a terribly original one, at the end.

THE STRANGER WITHIN is reminiscent of some of the corniest suspense films of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Indeed, it echos the title of a 1974 TV movie which apparently has a similar conflict and must have inspired this one.