Why so much hype?

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Willem Dafoe in the role of a retiring detective haunted by his most famous case, a serial killer named Uncle Eddie. When a copycat killer seems to emerge, Dafoe's character, Stan Aubray, becomes the main target and obsession for this new murderer. Basically, this is a crime mystery with some grue, and the added element of esoteric photography. Most of the detective work seems forced, especially Carl discovering mirror images in his metal coffee mug - really? The deserted Playland doesn't seem to warrant much curiosity from PD, and neither is it staked out or called a crime scene, so that one last spooky scene can be performed there. Aubray does not seem very intelligent, merely lucky, and the red herrings are truly all the other characters thrown in to keep you guessing, which is OK, if you don't mind being strung along.Now, the ending. SPOILER: The killer is Aubray. It's obvious to me he's been hallucinating for the sake of the audience, and only at the end are we allowed to see him morphing into "Michael." Now - if there IS a Michael, and Aubray is NOT the killer, then this ending REALLY sucks. As it is, the ending as I see it is still too transparent because I was guessing it was Aubray the whole time. He feels guilt, which has manifested as self-hatred, and then hatred of all things related. He wasn't being stalked, he was stalking himself. AUBRAY put the painting on the street, then bought it. Aubray knew exactly how these esoteric devices worked because he was expert at it. He was just stuffing down the other self - he really didn't know he was doing this. "But wait," you say, "what about when they showed a picture of Michael?" I think Aubray was imagining these things, but the filmmakers just went a step too far in covering this up and left it to our imaginations. OK, not a bad trick, but not well-played, if you ask me.The music was overdramatic, reminiscent of Marvel Comics movies, and so it goes for the Green Goblin. The plot was super-thin with no real subplots to dig into. The dialogue tried to be existential, arty and earthy all at the same time but I was mostly bored.What did I LIKE? That one of the most important jobs in the world is fighting crime, and being a detective, because it exposes and catches evil, and actually does some good, even after the fact, and I think the film tries in the first half of the film to make this point.Check out this quirky but loose film at your own risk. It's visually appealing and has a bit of philosophy to ponder, but the rest is window dressing.

Well, i did see the trailer for this film quite a while ago and i thought, wow this looks good. Only recently did i watch the film and I wish i didn't. The story of the film is basically that a detective (dafoe) re-opens a series of murder cases by a well known killer he was investigating. The story is mainly focused on Dafoe with minor characters such as his prostitute friend (Duvall) and his detective partner (speedman). I thought this film had loads of potential but it fell short because it lacked a few things. 1) the character development- although they established a few elements to Dafoes character, I thought they should have gone further to develop his character. Speedman and Duvalls characters have the typical stereotypes associated with any rookie detective and prostitute friend. I didn't feel that these characters had anything interesting to add to the film and were there really to just infill any film clichés the director wanted to add. I must say that the idea is very original and the victim scenes were interesting to watch but I was not at all satisfied with the ending as it was more of an anticlimax more than anything and the killer said 3 lines in the whole film.

Defoe is the best element in this derivative film, which would undoubtedly be the case even if the narrative was good.. yes, the story seems engaging enough but it's essentially a one trick pony and that pony is out to make the spectator sick.. Anamorph is a "push-the- envelope" thriller trying to follow in the footsteps of "Seven"; it's just making the footprints uglier and ever-more detailed.. and it's not as good...(even television is now giving the watcher increasing amounts of gore.. I don't know how much more real it can get: 3D, bigger screens, longer shots, clearer lighting, more and more details, etc...)after Defoe it's principal positive quality is that the viewer is given an art lesson.. yet even if one can find a value to this story it ultimately provides a greater lesson to those who are sick and demented...for "pushing-the-envelope" thanks go to the art directors Doug Hursti and Woods Macintosh as well as, of course, their minions of modelers...

There is a magical formula for any movie star who wants to know if he has achieved the epitome of his craft. The actor must be able to play the hero and the Villain with equal believability. In this dark edition to his long repertoire of great roles, William Dafoe plays Detective Stan Aubray in a film entitled " Anamorph. " Aubray is a dedicated, guilt ridden, alcoholic who plies his trade with single-minded precision. Years ago he believed he solved a complex series of gruesome murders attributed to ' Uncle Eddie, ' a notorious murderer. However the fact it may have cost the life of an undercover cop, haunts his daily life. Indeed, when a new set of killings makes it's way back into the headlines, Aubray is assigned to the case by Chief Lew Brainard (James Rebhorn) who also assigns Michael C (Don Harvey) as his new partner. Together, they are faced with a number of crime scenes which baffle the entire department and holds the city in fear. Scott Speedman plays Carl Uffner an artist and helpful aid who tries to help his friend understand the complexity of the bizarre art crimes. It is not often a dramatic and dark film can create such intensity for an audience, but this movie is one which for all intents and purposes will definitely become a milestone for Defoe. A sound artistic thriller destined to scare the courageous into being afraid of the dark. Well made! ****