Lisa Roberts has been raped, so she leaves New York for her aunt and uncle's trailer in the desert community of Oneida. She lives there alone with her relatives' birds, but helpful neighbor Walter is next door with his wife Emily.
Lisa is the illustrator for Iron Medusa comic books. While she is working on her art in a restaurant, she meets Randall, who likes her work (later we learn his daughter, who died in an accident, was a big fan of Iron Medusa). They become friends. Randall rides a motorcycle and enjoys the great outdoors, but he hates living in a small town where everyone knows everyone else's business. Though he explains he is living on disability and taking short-term work, he says his goal is to move to San Francisco and renovate houses.
Randall wants to move his relationship with Lisa to the next level, but she is not ready because of her recent traumatic experience. What happens next brings Deputy Steve Smith into the picture. He is very nice and suspicious of Randall.
Something strange is going on in this town. It may involve Joe and another man Lisa sees outside the trailer.
There's not anything really special about this movie, though Lisa is confident and determined while never completely overcoming her nervousness, and she has plenty of reasons to be scared. Lisa's art (according to the credits, Matthew Nelson's) is really good and probably has real therapeutic value because she can pretend to dispose of the villains in her life. In reality, it is not that easy. (By the way, I'm not interested in comic books or their art.)
Courtney Cox, D. B. Sweeney and Craig Sheffer all give good performances. The circumstances provide us with the occasional chilling moment, and the obligatory creepy music shows up from time to time. Most importantly, a number of plot twists keep us constantly guessing. There is more violence than I would have liked, and obviously some sexual content--not necessarily of a violent nature.
I was disappointed by the ending. I'm sure nothing significant was edited out, but it seemed to me the writers dug themselves a hole and then found a white rabbit with a pocket watch.
This was a pretty good thriller.
