Perhaps I'm a little too harsh on some glossy Hollywood horror directors. Take Jonathan Liebesman, the man behind Texas Chainsaw: The Beginning & Darkness Falls. Both of those were flashy and forgetable, Michael Bay wannabe, crap-fests. I may need to consider that these pop music directors get typecast in the horror genre and may wanna try something a little deeper...as demonstrated by Liebesman with The Killing Room, a nifty Saw-like thriller with some cool political undertones.
It's got a great cast from Timothy Hutton (so good in The Dark Half), Clea DuVall, Chloe Sevigny, Shea Whigham, Peter Stormare (the barking Ruskie's nearly perfected his Yank accent)and Nick Cannon. Four strangers willingly enter the killing room for a government experiment where they'll earn $250 for a days work. However, when Doctor Peter Stormore leaves the room, things go breast-up pretty quickly.
It's quite tense, although there's very little in the way of gore. It's also very insightful into Bush politics and what a government is willing to do to best its enemies. Through new recruit Sevigny, we get to see the killing room from the captors perspective and consider that we, as informed and educated citizens are complicit in our governments decisions, even if we don't always agree with them.
Smart stuff. Still, I can't see Michael Bay's Platuinum Dunes production company dropping horror remakes for intense thrillers on the Global Economic Crisis, just yet.
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