Upon returning to his home after spending a long time in the military school, Michael, a young teenager guy, was shocked by finding out that his mother has a boyfriend, the thing that brings terrible for him and challenges him, but everything changes when he finds him treats him well, so he begins to suspect his reality.
That last stormy night of violence should be the shocker. Giving away his ruthlessness in earlier killings robs the movie of it its payoff as it saps the climax of much of its power.
London Evening Standard
December 11, 2009
There's mayhem all over the place and not a policeman, or much logic, in sight. Watchable nonsense, with performances better than the story deserves.
Georgia Straight
February 15, 2013
What a shame that the remake fell into the unwieldy hands of the same jokers responsible for last year's execrable Prom Night redo.
Any subtlety or implicit social satire to be found in Joseph Ruben's original went out with the last neighborhood trash pickup. Too bad the service was canceled before it could haul away this waste-of-time remake. [Blu-ray]
The genre has diverged into two paths: the brutally gruesome and the suspenseful. This is going for the latter, which would have been fine if it were in fact thrilling.
Not so much a contemporary re-make of Joseph Ruben's 1987 psychological thriller as a lobotomised bastard step-child: over-plotted, over-long, and stripped of the original's sharp, satirical subversion of suburban family values.
