A virtual recluse since his pregnant wife was murdered by a psychotic gang (cue creepy Polanski parallels), horror director Boris Arkadin (Jeroen Krabbé) comes out of retirement to shoot a bloody recreation of the killings. But does he plan to murder his cast of unknowns for real, for the ultimate exploitation film?
Bernard Rose, a once-promising British filmmaker, misfires spectacularly with this lurid, DV-shot sleazefest. At best, Rose is punching above his intellectual weight; at worst, indulging himself, and exploiting his cast, just as Arkadin does. He could have saved himself a five-year struggle by renting Michael Haneke’s masterful Funny Games, which made the same point — the audience’s complicity in screen violence — more effectively. Disturbing and distasteful, and not in a good way.