There's a girl? On my slab? Yes!

I think this might have been a straight to DVD release despite the impressive cast of Liam Neeson, Justin Long, and Christina Ricci. And despite all the acting talent and the fact that it was pretty well made it all just fell apart due to lack of direction and poor writing.

Ricci's character was really poorly designed. She never really had any clear personality or direction, and she was kind of an idiot. She couldn't figure out how to open a main door in the school where she has presumably worked for years. She acts erratic and distant from Justin Long but never really gives any indication why or what motivates her.


And then she dies. And the movie skips straight to her in the morgue of the funeral parlor talking to Liam, but (probably) dead. Actually, that is the big central conflict of the film, because we are never told if she is actually dead or if she is alive but trapped in the morgue with a crazy undertaker. The movie conveniently skips anything that might help us (the car crash, the paramedics, the ambulance ride to the hospital, and how does she get to Liam's place?) So all this confusion and tension is complete bullshit that the movie manufactures by not telling us basic stuff. Ricci is no help because even though she is the one who is the most affected by the living or dead question, we never find out if she feels pain, if she can cut herself with one of those sharp instruments and bleed her own blood, or any other relevant clues to her status (oh, but if her breath fogs a mirror at the end of the movie, that is supposed to tell her something) (Or is it, since it doesn't seem like it really told her anything useful?) (Oh what the fuck was the point of any of it?)

So, yeah, muddled mess of a film that does manage to stir up some scenes of tension and drama but they are only derived from cheap manipulation because the writers never let you know what rules they are playing by. This is not like The Sixth Sense or The Others where there is a legitimate twist/mystery it is just a bunch of bullshit trying to confuse you. And let you look at Ricci boobs, because she is a dead corpse and therefor she is either in a red slip or naked for most of the move. And that's pretty much it. Justin Long is funny just by being Justin Long but he has nothing to work with in this role. Liam is too flaky and weird to be bad-ass or sexy or any of the other cool things Liam can be. This is one of those movies that you don't hate while you are watching it so much but after it is over you hate it more the more you think about it.