La mort en dédicace

Sure, it's slow on action, but what atmosphere! I really enjoyed this movie the first time around, when I wasn't really paying attention, so I watched it a couple more times on cable. This was the first movie where I had really seen Tom Sizemore and known who he was, and he was absolutely chilling. I thought the interplay between Sizemore's menacing character and McDermott's kind of confused, innocent character was a lot of fun. Poor Dylan. He had no idea what he was getting into when he let that guy into his house, did he? I think the Sharon Stone sequences looked kind of tacked on - not that she didn't brighten up the screen - and I agree with other comments that the plot could have been tightened up, but overall I find it a haunting, very entertaining movie that should have gotten a lot more attention than it did at the time of its release. It didn't show up on cable until several years later. I liked it so much I picked up a copy on eBay and would highly recommend it to anyone who likes creepy suspense films.

A struggling writer moves into an abandoned mansion and discovers

it's gruesome history.

Starring Dylan McDermott and Tom Sizemore and Sharon Stone.

Written by Yolande Turner and Charles Finch. Directed by Charles Finch.

This is like a soft porn film where somebody has taken all the soft porn out and left us with a pile of dodgy acting, terrible backing music and poor production.

The ending is obvious after about 20 minutes and the only good thing about this movie is one scene where Sharon Stone gets out of a swimming pool! This is atmospheric and creepy but sadly lacking in any excitement or production values. And the least that can be said about the cardboard extras at the end, the better.

4/10

"Where Sleeping Dogs Lie" would have been a much better film had the director and writer tightened the screen play in which it's based. Charles Finch, the director, and Yolanda Turner, the writer, tried to put some life into the film with mixed results.

The story of Bruce, a writer that is house sitting a mansion that has seen better days, offers a lot of possibilities. Bruce made the discovery about a murder that has taken place in the house. To make matters worse, he agrees into taking a lodger, the creepy Eddie Hale. The viewer realizes right away where the story is going. The result is an uneven movie that has some good elements and with another creative team it might have been more interesting.

Dylan McDermott is Bruce, the writer. Tom Sizemore has more opportunity playing the strange Eddie Hale, who is the key to the mystery surrounding the mansion and what happened in it years ago. Sharon Stone is seen as a literary agent that wants to dare Bruce into producing a masterpiece.

"Where Sleeping Dogs Lie" is a curiosity piece that is mildly engrossing.

This movie should have been great.

The acting is great. The locations are excellent, as is the photography, editing and so forth.

The premise is clever, the opening scenes of the script intriguing, and the actions of the characters logical given the circumstances. A few scenes are riveting, and the sequence of events, at least for the first half of the movie, captures your attention completely.

My feeling is that the film was cut, to the point where we are left with only the basic storyboard. The ending is questionable, probably because there are missing pieces of information.

Hopefully, the whole film was shot, and someone will go back and re-edit the final version someday. Or perhaps I am filling in a script that was not revised enough - who knows? But my gut feeling is that this film could have been quite extraordinary.

There are three reasons to watch, and enjoy, this film... Sizemore, Sizemore and Sizemore.

Dylan McDermott is alright and all, beefcake does nothing for me. A dozen guys could've played this part. A half dozen would've made something of it. Sharon Stone... anyone could have played her part, and she acted as if she was proving just that. She looked good doing it, no surprise. A little slow moving and the plot is very predictable but a nice ending semi-twist.

It is Tom Sizemore's performance that makes this film worth watching. I always liked this guy but he does a good-to-great weirdo in this movie.

7 out of 10... Too generous?? To each his own.