Horror maven Wes Craven gets the red out of his eye and moves effectively into the intense Hitchcockian thriller genre.



While I admit to being a horror film fan (excluding the slasher and torture sub-genres), I admire Wes Craven when he moves out of his comfort zone and explores other genres. He did this earlier with the very sensitively directed Music of the Heart with Meryl Streep and helped her earn another Oscar nomination with her role as an arrogant but caring music teacher. Now here he is with a less gore more psychological thriller that Alfred (Psycho) Hitchcock would have made if he was still around.



This film has numerous twists and turns and probably the less said, the better regarding plot, but all I'll reveal is that the ever cute Rachel McAdams (The Notebook) is trapped sitting next to the incredibly menacing and slimy Cillian Murphy (Scarecrow in Batman Begins) who blackmails her into cooperating with his plans that are a bit too convoluted to get into the details here.



At a tight well-paced 85 minutes McAdams continues to outwit her capture, but Murphy is usually one step ahead of her, or at least only one or two steps in back of her (but he always catches up quickly). The tension is creatively and believably drawn out and the film is not without its humorous moments to lighten the thick atmosphere at times. This typically occurs just when the film seems like it's about to take itself too seriously and wants to then step back and give us a wink that clearly says, "we're just havin' fun here."



High praise all around from the simple B-level set designs, appropriate not-over-the-top music, and clever script to the wholly believable performances of the stars, solid cinematography that clearly has the less is more approach, and the steady controlled direction by Wes Craven who should do more films like this one.



Why four stars and not five after all this praise? Well, it's really all B-movie quality; it's just done extremely well.