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Cruel And Unusual

2002, Movie, R, 100 mins

Cruel And Unusual: Review

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In the quietly menacing tradition of Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter, Tom Berenger plays a civilized serial killer whose motives make perfect sense to him, though normal people will find his messianic mission to weed out the lonely both appalling and scary. Weary of her younger brother's addictions, small town fisherperson Kate O'Connor (Rachel Hayward) lines up a job for her brother Mike Tygh Runyan) as lighthouse assistant on an island north of Seattle. Enter itinerant murderer Art Stoner (Berenger), who's murdered the academic writer who was supposed to spend the summer as lighthouse supervisor and assumed his identity. The manly and focused Art acts as a father figure to Mike, but when he starts courting Kate, who's ripe for a serious affair, the situation makes Mike very uncomfortable. Troubled by his own repressed homosexuality, Mike senses mixed signals from the ostensibly heterosexual Art. Accustomed to satisfying his god-like whims, Art views himself a blank slate on which his victims can write their own desires. The sociopathic Art draws Mike out, feeding on the details of Mike's upbringing at the hands of an abusive father; Art soon begins mimicking that behavior. Increasingly envious of Kate, Mike doubts Art's claim that he's a writer, but Kate dismisses Mike's grousing as jealousy. Having killed anyone who ever trusted him, Art views himself as a mercy killer for the maladjusted, and the next lambs in line at his slaughterhouse could be Mike and Kate. Will Kate realize before it's too late that Art's tenderness is really a prelude to execution? More engrossing than outright nerve-wracking, this psychological thriller is genuinely unsettling despite sporadic slow patches. The production makes good use of the foggy coastal locale as a metaphor for the victims' confusion and vulnerability. leave a comment --Robert Pardi
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