nmlal68 One of the worst movies I have ever seen. I really cannot understand why some people here are writing wonders about it. I ask myself what kind of movies they are used to.To make it short, Kingsley is not only a very poor screenplay writer, but also a very bad actress and an even worse director. There is no rhythm, no energy, no wit, no will. Everything is so poor that you might think the whole project was intended to be a practical joke all along. Overall acting is bellow what could be accepted in a B movie, except of course, for Faye Dunaway, always a great lady on the screen. In fact, when Kingsley acts alone with her, she seems to improve a little bit. My question is... what was Dunaway doing, mingling with that mediocre crowd??? Difficult to understand...Keep away from this piece of trash! There is no other way to describe it.

CoKeen The camera angle, the light, primarily one performer - I rather had the impression I was watching a piece of theater. If you're not attracted by the actress, if you don't enjoy watching her, it will not work for you. For me it did, moreover, it felt like I attended the rise of a great talent.The story is about lunatics, this easily attracts my interest. On my ranking list "Shining" pins the lower end opposing the Belgian "Calvaire" which I guess is hard to beat. David Lynch was mentioned here, but that's something different, though if you can enjoy his movies you're more likely enjoy this one too, rather than if you waiting for the next "Saw" sequel.

paulfergz I have rarely seen such an awful film as this one. Its one redeeming feature is that from time to time the cinematography is "quite" nice. Otherwise, it's utterly terrible. The dialogue, well, what can you say? I don't think I can come up with enough negative superlatives to evoke how cliché-ridden and quite frankly wooden (something that complements the acting) the script is. It's the kind of script that you can complete in your head before the lines are delivered.As with someone who commented above, I only made it to the end because I thought that maybe, just maybe, 'normality' would be presented with a complete shift of both the dialogue and the cinematic tone. This was about the only justification I could think of as to why the rest of it was so bad. But oh no, that idea had obviously not occurred to anyone involved in actually making the film. Did no one tell the writer/director/star of this appalling example of film that the whole thing was a disaster? I'd be interested in meeting representatives of the companies that funded this venture because I have a little proposition for them.Meanwhile, avoid this shockingly bad film at all costs - even the apparently sexy October K blows it by thinking herself super-sexy

rosscosjunk Definitely worth a look if you enjoy weird (stuff that makes NO SENSE at all), art-house-type films (shaky camera work and terrible acting) that defy the restrictive boundaries of contemporary, mainstream American films (in other words, it's so bad, there are NO WORDS IN THE English DICTIONARY TO DESCRIBE exactly how bad it is). Also, lots of perverse, wacky humour and sexually suggestive material (yep, when all else fails - revert to boobs and bottoms) that will rattle your delicate sensibilities for days to come (I've already forgotten about it - the only thing I'm wondering is why someone/ANYONE! would waste their time, let alone their money to watch it). Please DO NOT compare this movie to ANY movie (original or not) from Directors Lynch and Kubrick. It's like comparing J.K. Rowling to William Shakespeare. (In fact, not even that close).