The Killing Room Review: “Classy Independent Thriller”

agentorange over at Quiet Earth has mostly good things to say about The Killing Room, a psychological thriller starring Nick Cannon, Clea DuVall, Timothy Hutton, Chloe Sevigny, and Peter Stormare.  The film takes the premise that the MKULTRA mind experiments of the 50′s and 60′s never really stopped, and while director Jonathan Liebesman (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, Darkness Falls) does a decent job milking the four-people-in-a-room shtick, agentorange asserts,  it could’ve been more suspenseful.

IMDb users aren’t quite as enthusiastic, with 1200 voters averaging a 5.7/10 rating, which places it between Massacre and Darkness in the Liebesman oeuvre.

(Incidentally, Liebesman co-wrote and directed a short on the Ring Two DVD called Rings that acts as a sort of bridge between the installments which is supposed to be excellent.)

The Killing Room doors open October 13th.  You can pre-order it here.

The Charts: You Can Rent, But You Can’t Buy

Top Straight-to-DVD Rentals for Week Ending 9/6/09

(Source: IMDb)

1. The Line
2. Bring it On: Fight to the Finish
3. Streets of Blood
4. Labor Pains
5. The Killing Room
6. Messengers 2: The Scarecrow
7. The Code

A couple of new entries opening strong at the top.  The Line is a drug drama starring Ray Liotta and Andy Garcia.  It’s not for sale until November, but you can rent it now.  The latest Bring It On sequel is scoring predictably high.  The Killing Room, a psychological-experiment-turns-ugly thriller starring Nick Cannon, Timothy Hutton, Peter Stormare, and Chloe Sevigny won’t be ownable til October, but is holding its own for now.  And if The Code can hang in there a little longer, we might see Morgan Freeman on this chart twice when The Maiden Heist launches next month.

Click on any of the above titles to buy or pre-order.

My Review of American Son on AMC/Filmcritic.com

Yours truly has seen Nick Cannon home front drama American Son for himself and is duly impressed.  You can read my full review on AMC/Filmcritic.com.  The beauty of the film is that it doesn’t try too hard.  And, yes, Nick Cannon can do drama but, more importantly, so can the rest of the cast, which offers especially strong turns from Chi McBride (natch) and Jay Hernandez (which might seem surprising from Hostel-boy until you remember he was Brian Chavez in Friday Night Lights).

You can buy American Son here.

Nick Cannon Is Hilari-oh, No, Not This Time

Nick Cannon stars in American Son as a Marine with 96 hours to spend at home before he’s deployed to Iraq.  Nominated for a Grand Jury Prize at Sundance but scoring a 5.6/10 on IMDb.  Also starring Jay Hernandez, Chi McBride, Tom Sizemore, and Percy Daggs III, which, as an avowed Veronica Mars fanatic, interests me more than any other single detail about this film.

Buy American Son here.