A potentially great movie is spoiled by that old chestnut, completely implausible and ridiculous behaviour by the characters. The hero is told at one point , to his face, by the girl herself, that his weird neighbour is not the girl's father - our hero's expert opinion on this, as an outstanding criminal psychologist? "That was weird". I quote. His wife is continually harassed by the weird neighbour - does she tell her husband? Hell, no. That would be too intelligent. Towards the end we see that she has track marks right down her arm from being drugged - does the fabulous criminal psychologist notice? Nope. His senior officer in the police force finally begins to believe him that his weird neighbour is probably a serial killer, so said older, experienced officer goes into the potential serial killer's house, without a weapon, a partner or back-up of any kind, not forgetting, of course, to take his shoes off first. Wouldn't do to break with protocol. Although the wife has a mini-breakdown after seeing the corpse of the first 'wife' and screams wildly, she does nothing when her own husband is taken hostage. First wife's daughter - who is not drugged as far as we know - is handed a weapon and the villain conveniently bends down in front of her, giving her a close-up, clear shot - does she take it? Hell no again. Despite the fact that she is fully compos mentis and he's about four foot and a coward, PLUS, she's already snitched on him twice (for all the good that does her). When she does escape does she call the police? Nope. Of course not - that would get in the way of the 'plot'.
The whole thing is like this, full of holes big enough to drive a mack truck through, so that you are so annoyed by the characters' stupidity that you just spend all your time jeering at them and thinking they deserve to die. Which is a shame, because the settings are good, the story idea is interesting and involving and the characters are good, especially the villain who plays his part excellently. I just can't forgive the stupidity.
The whole thing is like this, full of holes big enough to drive a mack truck through, so that you are so annoyed by the characters' stupidity that you just spend all your time jeering at them and thinking they deserve to die. Which is a shame, because the settings are good, the story idea is interesting and involving and the characters are good, especially the villain who plays his part excellently. I just can't forgive the stupidity.