Spoilers want to meet the set designer.

There’s been more than one psychological thriller that describe the hero/heroine’s act of having to “go into the mind of a killer” or something along those lines. There are not many films who have taken that premise one step forward into the realm of the subconscious and brought that world to life. This one of those cases in which the style is the actual substance of an otherwise average film. Grab your VR set and let’s go.

(Credit: New Line Cinema)

The Cell (2000) is directed by Tarsem Singh and written by Mark Protosevich. Catherine Duane (Jennifer Lopez) is social worker who works with an experimental team capable of literally projecting her mind into someone else’s. The result is she walks into the dreamworld of someone with mental issues and interacts with them in a way that nobody else cans. One day, FBI agent Peter Novak (Vince Vaughn) arrives with a comatose sociopathic serial killer, Carl Stargher (Vincent D’Onofrio), that tortures women by putting them into a sealed room that he slowly floods until they drown. Peter convinces the team and Catherine to go into the mind and extract the information to locate his latest kidnapping victim before she perishes.

Let’s get the plot contrivances over and done. Vaughn doesn’t really nail the character of a tough FBI agent. Lopez is average as social worker Catherine, although she does have some moments in which she shines a little brighter. Vaughn and Lopez don’t have much in the realm of chemistry. They are not completely unwatchable, but hardly memorable in their roles. On the other hand, D’Onofrio is particularly creepy as serial killer Carl Stargher, both in real life and in the mental plane. Everyone else is doing their job and often serving as exposition dumps for the plot. In typical fashion, we’re playing with the Matrix rulebook. That means, you die in dreamland means you die in real life.

Where the movie shines is once we step into the twisted mind palace that is Stargher’s mind. This is where the set design and cinematography do an amazing world of transporting us to a dark fantasy land. This is where Catherine finds out there are two sides to the man she’s tracking, one is the omnipotent sadistic king and the other is the little boy that is still getting mistreated by his father. This is not an appeal to empathy, Stargher is ruthless and cruel in the way he depicts the semblances of the victims inside his head. This is the highlight of horror visuals, although I don’t believe they can be considered particularly scary by modern standards.

It does work when it plays to its strengths. I’d even say it also shows restraint in how much screen time the dream sequences take. It does always leave you wanting to see more. Unfortunately, the procedural that we have outside is just of average quality. That being said, I appreciate the efforts were put on the movie’s strongest aspects so I do consider this a win. Of course, eventually Agent Novak must go in to “save” Catherine, although he’s never been there and has no idea how to navigate. Obviously enough, she ends up saving him.

Highly recommended with reservations. Yes, the entire shell of the overarching plot is just a crime drama with very little bite except for the strong performance of D’Onofrio as the serial killer Stargher. It’s only once we step into the surrealistic sequences that depict his mind is when the movie shines with set design, costume and cinematic shots right out of a painting. It’s never quite to the degree of horror today. Still worth a watch for the amazing imaginative visuals that still hold up.

That will do for now.