La stanza del delitto

Traci Lords stars in this thriller with psychological overtones. She's a recent widow whose scientist husband died suddenly while working on a breakthrough. She takes her son with her to the hotel room where he died, hoping to find out something more. Her son is troubled immediately by dreams and visions of his father's final days.

The writer and director try hard to give us a movie that's original and atmospheric, but it doesn't quite work. The first hour of the film moves so slowly that many viewers may not make it to the big revelations. On this basis I would only give it the barest of recommendations to fans of the genre.

There's no doubt Ms. Lords is a good actress and she can almost carry a film like this by herself. Robert Wisdom and Tony Todd are also good in their roles. Veterans Karen Black and Michael J. Pollard have small parts here; Black acquits herself well, Pollard less so.

This movie was alright, but not one of my favorites. I picked this one up because of the box's promised pairing of Traci Lords and Tony Todd. I really liked Candyman (the FIRST one) and I was eager to see Mr. Todd play something other than a murderous hook-wielding spectre. And let's just say that I'm partial to Traci Lords... Anyway, in accordance with many of Traci's other recent roles (in "Profiler" and _Extramarital_), this movie is a dramatic-thriller. The plot takes a little while to get moving, but the actors do good work for what they are given. Its not a bad story, but I'm sure that there could have been some way to "speed it up" a little. Traci Lords plays Kelly Bekins, a widow who returns to the hotel room where her husband was murdered. She does this in part for closure and also to find out more about what happened. She meets one of her husband's colleagues, Michael Novic (Andrew Heckler), in the city, who attempts to comfort her in her time of struggle. There is also a strange post-mortem connection between Kelly's son, Matthew (Seth Adkins), and her deceased husband. While at the hotel, there are some interesting characters, most notably Bubba (Tony Todd). All performances are well done. The writing picks up near the end, but like I said, it moves a little slow.

Tracy Lords has one expression and speaks and acts as lifeless as someone who has been drugged. Additionally, the character is not very sharp on the uptake. Taking her son to the room where his father was killed and when he starts having nightmares, she is upset and tells him that she doesn't know what's going on with him, but in effect, he should snap out of it. She leaves her son alone at night in a hotel room and goes up to the roof. She slaps her son, he runs away and instead of immediately running after him she lingers to speak to her lover. This is the only time in my life that I wanted to reach through the screen and ......... I don't know who was the worst actor, she or Andrew Heckler, they were lifeless. This is not a movie, it's an 'ovie'. The principals in this movie were the worst I've ever seen. The only credible actors were the motley crew of black characters and the daffy hotel manager, who it seems was the director of the movie. Don't waste your 2 hrs, thank God I didn't pay for this, I saw it on TV.