I haven't hated anything I've seen thus far at Fantastic Fest, but this is one of only two movies I haven't been wildly enthusiastic about no matter how much I try.

Please take anything you see written about this movie that includes a comparison to Rashomon with a grain of salt. Kurosawa's movie and this movie really should not be found mentioned in the same sentence, paragraph, or article. Three different people all have somewhat varying accounts of an "incident" in this serial killer movie. The accounts are not as wildly different as using the R word would imply. Three different POVs, murder? Check and check, but that doesn't equal the dynamic of Rashomon as a whole. The visuals of the flashbacks are all consistent, it's the story people are telling that contains different information. It is patently unfair to compare this film to Rashomon, so don't. Rant ends here.

Serial murders are being committed in broad daylight and FBI agents (Pullman and Ormond) are sent to investigate after a particularly grisly encounter finds a stoner, a young girl, and a local cop telling their individual accounts of what went down. The acting was pretty solid all around really, with the exception of some bizarre stuff the local police guys say (even for backwater morons...badly written, takes you out of the film).

Even though I didn't fall in love with the movie, I relished the opportunity to enjoy headliners Bill Pullman and Julia Ormond, as well as French Stewart and Cheri Oteri doing something other than broad comedy. They're both really talented actors who unfortunately got pidgeonholed into one certain type and seemed to be stuck with only being offered that kind of stuff.

I figured out who was doing the killing pretty early on, and honestly found myself wanting to be surprised and have the movie throw me for a loop. I didn't hate it, but I forgot I'd seen it two days later.