Powerfully disturbing special effects lend a hand in building the suspense, but you may find yourself more worried about what kind of scarring effects some of the graphic scenes will have on your psyche than actually caring about the characters. Diane Lane does an adequate job playing soldier for Sony and Colin Hanks seemed perfectly cast as the nerdy FBI agent we all imagine tracking our every key stroke in some caffeine driven government office while we apprehensively download porn and illegal songs. But the bad guy left me wanting more from casting, just not creepy enough once finally exposed.
No, you won’t be running to the front door to check the locks, and you won’t be looking at your neighbor funny the next day, but at least it isn’t Cop Rock. If you are expecting to be disturbed to your core, like Silence of the Lambs, you will be disappointed. Director Gregory Hoblit tries to pull from his strong points of suspense, marrying tense innocuous scenes with subtle hints of malevolence. He demonstrates this in his opening sequence and really never stops with the formula. It becomes a bit predictable at times and a tad annoying while you wait for the next genius to walk into the killer’s traps.
