It is a performances centric movie

Excellent, a Must See

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

When Susan Hamilton (Thora Birch) dreams she is Karen Clarke who lives in a nightmarish surreal noir world. Karen dreams she is Susan Hamilton, although not really stressed. Susan is taking medication and attempting to get pregnant. Meanwhile there are reports of a night stalker serial killer in both realities. This was indeed a psychological thriller. The ending isn't spelled out for you. The closure is what you assign to it. Reminded me a bit of the film "Sublime." Guide: F-word. Brief nudity. No sex.

For some this movie may require more then one viewing. I would actually recommend watching it at least twice as there is so much going on that things make much more sense after a second viewing. After reading some of the reviews here I can see that this movie went over a lot of peoples heads which is no surprise to me.First of all, no, the movie leaves no question unanswered, there are absolutely NO plot holes, and if it did for you watch it again, you missed it or if you refuse, maybe this just isn't the movie for you.Thora Birch, as always, gives an excellent performance. I swear every time I see her starring in a Horror I know its going to be good. This girl is talented and has an eye for picking great independent movies. I recommend checking out "The Hole" if you like her. Also, the rest of the actors in this movie are totally believable and give stellar performances.Without spoilers, this movie follows a young woman who lives two separate lives. One while she is awake and one when shes asleep. In one life she has everything she wants, a picture perfect life if you will. And the other life is dark and miserable. As the movie goes on the lives begin to intertwine. All of this is going on while a serial killer terrorizes the city they live in.The scenery of this movie is absolutely perfect between her two lives. Bright and happy in one life, Dark and menacing in the other. The characters and scenes in this movie are truly real. There are funny moments(This is NOT a comedy in any way) and some serious wtf? moments. Definitely not a cookie cutter movie in anyway though some may mistake it for one hence the bad reviews.For genre fans I cannot recommend this movie enough. I really don't like to sound over anxious in movie reviews because a lot of it comes down to taste and I don't want to let people down if this isn't there type of movie, but still, this movie really affected me to the point that I actually bought it and have shown it to many of my friends who aren't into the horror genre as much as myself and everyone I have shown it too has been affected which just reinforces my belief that this is of GEM quality.Mark my words, this will be a forgotten classic someday. The good acting, the subtle hints, combined with the "holy sh**" ending makes this one hard to forget.I gave this movie a 10 out of 10 rating because it really delivers. I never give 10. In the past I have given 7's to independent movies that were only deserving of a 6 to help them out when the one time trolls have killed and thoroughly discredited a movie, but in this case this movie really is, to me a 10/10 horror movie. I can think of nothing that could've made this movie better then it is.Absolute gem!!

I forced myself to sit through this and come the end of it wondered just why. Just why had I forced myself to sit through it? Well the only answer I can give you is that every minute I sat watching I kept hoping desperately that the film would become so very much less confusing and the directing so very much better. Unfortunately, neither happened. If the directing had improved that drastically it would have reached average at best. It didn't. If the film was less confusing then the dual story lines would possibly have worked. They didn't.Here is a synopsis of the film: It starts off with what must be Susan Hamilton entering a church. I say must be because as she enters the church she is calling for David and complaining that he hasn't lit any candles for their anniversary. She looks at the altar and it is empty. She sits down, lights a cigarette with a candle and suddenly has blood dripping on her from a dead body on the altar. She runs through the church gets caught by a man wearing a hooded top with the hood up to conceal his identity and gets stabbed to death. Susan Hamilton then wakes up with a jolt in a car in the front passenger seat next to her husband who is taking her to a romantic spot to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary. They are a blissfully happily married couple and she is trying to have conceive. In order to do so she is having I. V. F. treatment. Due to the stress of not being able to conceive naturally she is having nightmares. In this world she plays a character called Susan Hamilton, has blonde hair and wears light coloured clothing as everything is supposed to be light and in contrast to the world of her nightmares that is dark where Thora Birch puts a black haired wig on and wears black and plays a character called Karen Clarke. Now this is where it starts to get confusing. Why do Susan Hamilton's nightmares change from what I presume are about her to ones that are about Karen Clarke and why do both Susan Hamilton and Karen Clarke have nightmares about each other and the world the other lives in? Why is it that Susan has nightmares about The Nightstalker when he is in fact chasing Karen around therefore causing Karen to have nightmares about him. Susan eventually goes to see Dr. Woodleigh who is played by Toby Stephens after being recommended top him by a good friend of her's to get the nightmares stopped via hypnosis which they do for a while until she has a procedural operation as part of her I. V. F. that causes them to start again; this causes Susan to see Dr. Woodleigh a second time. Why is it that it is only after her second visit to him that we get the are lead to believe that not only is he The Nightstalker he also put the images and suggestions of him into Susan's mind while hypnotised during her first visit to him even though she was having nightmares about him way before her first appointment with him. If Dr. Woodleigh was The Nightstalker and was putting him into patients minds while under hypnosis with him then who was the other The Nightstalker Susan and Karen was running away from before Susan went to see Dr. Woodleigh. Karen threw up and a key with 618 on it came out. Why? It was never made clear as to why she had swallowed it in the first place or why it opened THAT box she saw someone burying or why someone was burying the box or what the box was about. From what I recall you never even got to see what was inside the box. Why did Karen seem to instantly know that the box had the same number on it as was on the key and that the key she threw up would unlock it?I have only touched on a very few of the questions that are left unanswered in this awful, awful film. I am sure that somewhere in/on this website someone has stated the ending so I'm not going to right now as I think that for now this is enough.

The acting in this film, particularly that from the always-pleasing Christien Anholt, is above average. The art direction and cinematography, though nowhere near Oscar-worthy, are quite good too. But those are the only things that keep this film from going directly into the toilet.Odd characters abound in here, along with many strange occurrences, without explanation. The viewer is left guessing as to what's actually going on, which is actually a good thing in the middle of the movie -- but when the film ends that way, not so much.And this one does. Just as the story is coming to an end, we're thrown a series of curve-balls and then thrown back to the middle with such a vague explanation (if it can even be called that) for the weird events in the body of the movie that we're left wondering if it's actually over. It's a relief to have it done with, but the story doesn't actually end so much as just come to a stop.What's really horrible about that is that a clear ending was well within reach. We do learn the identity of the Night Stalker serial killer. Who were Karen's fellow bus riders, appearing from nowhere at such unusual moments? What was the deal with the police detective, behaving like Longstreet in one scene and like Columbo in another? Why did the elderly male corpse get up and try to talk to Karen? And who, really, was the main perspective character -- or characters? Was there any real significance to the number 618? Granted, this has all the earmarks of a strongly "theme-oriented" story, so a strong plot, clear-cut setting, and compelling characters would have been just distracting. It's just too bad the theme couldn't have been made a bit clearer.My recommendation: unless you enjoy watching people being tortured to death with no logical explanation, only to see them suddenly come back to life to start the process all over again, skip this movie.