Pretty Good

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

As winter bites in a small town in Minnesota we meet a young lad with homicidal thoughts. His mom is a school teacher and she arranges for him to see a counsellor who is trying to stop him acting on the thoughts that are emanating from 'the dark side'.Round about the same time people start to turn up dead. They are not just dead however, as that would not be spooky enough. No they are all missing certain parts of their, erstwhile, mortal coils and the police are devoid of clues as to what is happening under their very, bloodied, noses – metaphorically speaking of course.Now this is a film that is basically an Irish effort but has been made in the US as its story clearly works a lot better in that setting. The acting is all great but hats off to Christopher Lloyd ('Back to the future' trilogy) as Mr Crowley who can manage octogenarian frail and threateningly evil all in the same scene. There is a fair bit of blood letting and scenes of an autopsy nature so best to avoid a light supper whilst viewing. The acting is all very good indeed and the ending may not be to everyone's taste but the clues are sprinkled throughout and so I found it more than OK. So for a bit of blood spatter violence and a whole ton of vengeance this may be one for you.

It is such a tragedy when a film is so well done and then BAM- it goes to hell at the end. Max Records gives a fantastic performance of a teenager whose dark impulses frighten those around him because they do not understand the mindset of someone different. He is diagnosed as a sociopath from one of the most unethical doctors on film. He lacks empathy and it affects his life significantly. Despite his difficulty expressing or understanding empathy, he is drawn to help an elderly man next door (a great Christopher Lloyd) with secrets of his own. In the meantime, people are dying. This movie went so many interesting places and I loved some of the territory I could identify with. The performances were also top- notch. And then BAM- the ending takes all the best parts of the script and shreds them and wastes so much of the potential of this story. I enjoyed everything until the last ten minutes so much that I still had to give it a 6. It is worth the watch for how good it was and what it could have been with an ending grounded in reality. I understand that it is based on a book- but the book should have had a different ending too if it resembles this story the same way.

I read the first three books in the John Cleaver series by Dan Wells, and really enjoyed them. I didn't realize there are six until I started doing a bit of research for this review. I will definitely be checking them out.This movie was close to the first book, but there were four big differences. In the book you were able to read more about what was going on in John's mind. While Max Records did a great job showing emotions (or non-emotions) with his face, to me it was still lacking because we couldn't know all that he was thinking.The next was with Brooke. In the book John is obsessed with her, in such a way that it is very creepy and you actually think he will kill her. But in the movie, it seemed more like Brooke was obsessed with John. The scene where he is watching her through the window just didn't have the same effect that it did in the book.Next, and it's been awhile since I read the book, but I seem to remember that his mom was more understanding of him and his tendencies. In the movie when the psychiatrist tells her, she freaks out and doesn't want him down in the embalming room with her any more. I don't remember her doing this in the book, and she actually had him join her because she knew it was a way for him to temper some of his urges.And the last part that was really different was how the book ended. It was actually more climatic than in the movie. The killer who was violently fighting for his life in the book, just kind of lost all his fight in the movie.But even with these differences you should still watch this one, but maybe read the book afterwards so you get more out of it.

Reminiscent of the work of Cronenberg, particularly his pre- 2000's era, I Am Not a Serial Killer was a much better watch than I had expected. As some have pointed out, it is a slow burner, but I think that's necessary to give us insight and character development. At it's core, IANASK is a character study of our protagonist, John Cleaver. Is John Cleaver destined to be a serial killer? Is he a sociopath? Is he good, is he evil? These are the questions we find ourselves asking time and time again throughout the film as his words and actions contradict themselves and each other over and over. John Cleaver is a teenager and with all of the issues that face any normal teenager he also has to deal with some extremely difficult and strange problems. He is misunderstood, he doesn't know how to express himself, he is unsure of his feelings and his identity. If this movie had been gutted of the sci-fi aspect I am perfectly confident that this would have been a wonderful quality drama focusing on John's school and home life and how he deals with his father's absence and his homicidal ideations. That being said, I think the film works just fine as it is- really much better than it sounds on paper. IANASK has an organic feel in it's material that is hard to find and much sought after by many cinephiles, and that is the artistic vision of its creator. Not having seen any of O'Brien's other films I can't tell you if this elusive vision is that of the director or moreso of the source material, the novel by Dan Wells that it was based on; or, of course, a perfect marriage of the two. What I can tell you is that this film is not only fresh and interesting in way of the story but also the cinematography, shot beautifully on 16mm film, which gives the film a much more stately and artistic feel than this sort of material would have easily afforded shot digitally with the increasingly common voyeuristic hand-held style. All in all IANASK is a perfect example of modern film that still has heart, soul, and style; and as such it is a breath of fresh air in today's Hollywood climate.