(2006)What if every time you closed your eyes you experienced yourself getting brutally murdered by a psychopath? That's what is happening to poor Claire Parker. She just wants to get back to her normal life, class by day, work at the convenience store at night and a little down time with her boyfriend Jimmy. Everything starts going wrong when Claire, just ending her shift at work, waits for Jimmy to pick her up. A strange guy arrives instead driving Jimmy's truck. He identifies himself as Duke Desmond and claims he knows Jimmy from the salvage yard. He tells Claire Jimmy couldn't get away from work and asked him to pick her up instead. She hesitantly gets in the truck, he takes her home but he is acting very strange. She runs into the house and locks the door.
A few seconds later Duke is knocking stating that she left an earring in the truck. She asks him to leave it on the doorstep. After she hears the truck drive off she reaches through the gap of the chained door and grabs the earring. She then relaxes feeling safe for about one second until Duke comes in the back door. This is just the first of many scenes that Claire continually experiences. Each time she encounters Duke and each time he captures her and tortures her to death. In her waking hours she tries desperately to piece things together but the lines of reality are seriously blurred. Claire begins questioning everything including her own existence.
A twist ending that I didn't see coming is a good thing. This film has exactly that. I was so confused by the end of the film it was seriously starting to piss me off. Thankfully they pulled it all together with a satisfactory pipe in the ass. JSP I love that scale and now I just can't help but think of it when I'm watching a film like this. Duke Desmond is a dick. Not the most hated villain mind you, but he's a real dick. I think to have that really great pipe in the ass you also have to have a victim/hero that you're really rooting for. Lauren Currie Lewis, the actress who plays Claire reminds me a lot of Alicia Silverstone. She's not a wimpy, fall down when she tries to run kind of girl. Certainly there is a measure of feeling for her as she tries to piece together this living hell she's going through, so it works. Had they left the end dangling, I would have rated this much lower. Even so, I give it a shaky 3 Gretchens. Not because it was a really good film but because it held my attention throughout and had a good ending.
