Prepare to be disturbed. When such a talented group of individuals come together to accomplish a goal, the results are sure to be stunning. When that goal is to scare the crap out of an audience, you know you’re in for some sleepless nights.
Neil Jordan has never been known to do anything in a formulaic and mainstream fashion. His films from The Company of Wolves to The Butcher Boy have been challenging visions that defy classification. Here, Jordan has taken the familiar Hollywood cliché of a serial killer coming up against a clairvoyant and twisted it to extremes that many viewers won’t care to travel.
Annette Bening proves yet again that Warren Beatty is the luckiest man alive. She gives a wonderfully naked performance as Claire, a woman living a seemingly perfect life in an idyllic New England town. Her husband, played by the underrated Aiden Quinn of An Early Frost, is quietly handsome and comfortingly steadfast. Her daughter is angelic and pure. If only she didn’t have these frightening visions of young girls in danger.
If her waking life initially seems a dream come true, that dream soon becomes a nightmare when her subconscious and reality begin to blur. You see, her visions aren’t just her imagination getting the better of her. The girls she dreams about are really being murdered.
Jordan uses his formidable visual skills to deftly convey the disintegration of Claire’s hold on her own sanity as everything important in her life is stripped away from her, and she grows closer and closer to the demon in her mind. To say that this film is a psychological thriller is an understatement. The scenes of Bening falling into a state of disorientation and anguish are far more upsetting than anything you’ll see in Scream.
In fact, when the usually brilliant Robert Downey Jr. shows up in the final act of the film, it’s something of a letdown. Claire’s confrontation of her demon in the flesh is much less frightening than her inner battles of the psyche. But, maybe that’s what Jordan was trying to get at all along.
This film is not for everyone! It’s not a safe and fun packing of media-friendly violence like The Profiler or Kiss The Girls. Jordan is not one to pull punches. However, if you like his other work, you’ll find many of his trademark elements present: gorgeous visuals, cross-dressing, homicidal youths, religious iconography, hallucinatory images and unflinching human insight. Just be prepared to have a couple of nasty dreams.
Rating: 
