Delírio Diabólico

This movie has exactly the right balance between horror and humor and, more importantly, between revealing too much and revealing too little. Some questions are answered at the end, but some are not, and I for one like that some are not. It is not a pat, boil-in-the-bag horror movie. It is intelligent and requires that you pay attention, but it's not as if that's terribly hard to do, because it succeeds in being entertaining throughout. Those expecting pornographic vivisections will be disappointed; compared to movies like "Hellraiser," this film is more rightly classified as "psychological thriller" than horror. It remains an excellent movie, however, and if you don't get it maybe you ought to watch again. Pay a bit more attention next time.

Edgy? Stylish? Though-provoking?

More like Unoriginal, Stupid, and Confusing. This movie was a monumental letdown, all things considered. For starters, the plot was a messy rehash of several other "successful" movies. The writer must have been watching Fight Club, Vanilla Sky, and the Truman Show on 3 different TVs and thought "Wow, if I could only rip all 3 of these off, I could make the most mind-bogglingly retarded waste of film known to man!" The main character, Noname McNeedsActingLessons, looked like some horribly distorted charicature of George W. Bush. Seth Green, who enjoyed fame in questionably "mainstream movies," figured he could make an easy paycheck with this one by doing a bad Brad Pitt impression from 12 Monkeys. The plot jumps so much from one ripoff to another that I can just see the director thinking, "I can't wait until THIS scene, it'll blow their minds." Why yes, it did blow my mind... I WAS TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT WAS GOING ON! "But it's deep man," says the director, pointing out all the complex metaphors. About as deep as Corky Romano. Ted Raimi's character, apparently commenting on the plot, said it best, "There's too many variables." Yes, Ted, too many indeed.

Skip this one. If you fall into a trap and happen to see it, skip forward to Ted Raimi's scenes. He's the savior to an otherwise convoluted mess of pretentious crap.

Anyone can make a disjointed tale with blood, sex and drugs, that has no plot line, has a lot of inexplicable happenings and has no tie up at the end and we are supposed to think its really deep? Is that what passes for a psychological thriller now in 2006? Spare me. I watched the whole thing and I was bored silly. It wasn't even done well enough for me to want to know what the real story was.

There must be a sane starting point at either the beginning or end. it certainly won't be in the middle...Something to hang onto. This one did neither. Waste of time and I am not a kid with a short attention span.

However, The I Inside with Ryan Phillipe and Robert Sean Leonard is excellent and did make me think. Check it out.

The above tag line is a tip-of-the-hat nod to a previous IMDB user, and I agree. Seriously, I have never read such a deep divide in viewers over a horror movie! I have to wonder about people who call this movie "boring." What do audiences want from horror films today? There is real fear, dread and (most importantly) disorienting. I must agree that many younger minds with short attention spans will not enjoy this movie, but if you were intrigued by 12 Monkeys, Memento, Eraserhead, and other movies you HAD TO WATCH AND THINK ABOUT, I highly recommend this movie. Don't like loose ends? Tough! Want everything explained? Out of luck! But if you read Phillip K. Dick, H.P. Lovecraft or William Hope Hodgson, you will be pleased with this highly literate movie. I am looking forward to more from the director.

Promising in some ways. It looks like it might go somewhere - until the last half hour, which becomes increasingly unpleasant and confusing, climaxing in an arrogant or incompetent refusal to explain and fill in the loose ends. The performances and photography are quite competent. Unfortunately, it all collapses like a schizoid house of cards at the end. When it works, it feels like a combination of Suspiria and Jacob's Ladder.