D-Tox Review

D-Tox
When a serial killer murders his girlfriend, FBI agent Jake Malloy winds up in a secluded detox centre for law enforcement officers. However, when a snowstorm cuts the group off, murders begin…

by William Thomas |
Published on
Release Date:

01 Feb 2002

Running Time:

96 minutes

Certificate:

18

Original Title:

D-Tox

Some three years after filming began, D-Tox finally saw the light of day. That delay, coupled with the presence of former box office heavyweight Stallone, means it must be crap, right? Well, actually, no. It's better than crap. In fact, it's surprisingly watchable. Which, for a film delayed longer than Town & Country, is saying something.

It's a hybrid of Seven, The Thing, and Scottish helmer Gillespie's I Know What You Did Last Summer (right down to the killer's fur-lined parka and ability to be in two different places at the same time). But thanks to an ominous mood and some surprises – an attempted suicide is all the more shocking for its sheer matter-of-factness – the blend works. However, when Stallone arrives at the detox centre, Gillespie surrenders to cliché, wasting (literally) a pantheon of good actors in distressingly similar fashion.

Sly, though, is on impressive, if not career-resuscitating form – at least until convention dictates that he run around dark corridors waving a gun.

D-Tox is probably best enjoyed on video. But that a serviceable thriller like this struggles to get a release, when certain nameless dross gets rushed into cinemas is, frankly, bewildering.
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