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SPOILER ALERT.
This movie terrified me, but there were so many holes in the story - - I am listing some of them below.
I thought that Mr. Murray and Dr. Lewis were two men who were honestly doing as they said, which was having Katie finish a movie that another actress abandoned. But I started to wonder when I saw that Mr. Murray cut and dyed Katie's hair himself - - instead of a professional hairdresser on a set or in a salon. But, I thought that maybe they were cutting costs by not using a hairdresser (or makeup artist), but I still thought that it was strange. And I expected Katie to at least ask about that - - she was trusting this man to cut and dye her hair - - I can't imagine an actress (or any woman) allowing someone who wasn't a professional to do major alterations to her hair. But, I figured that she was just very desperate for the work (her husband was unemployed with a broken leg and her brother was staying with them and they were so broke that they weren't able to pay the rent). Even so, why didn't Katie just ask to wear a wig?
I knew for sure that something was wrong when the two men did all of the filming themselves, without cameramen or lighting men and no other crew or actors - - again, Katie didn't ask - - Mr. McMurray had told her something about the actors being "up in Canada," but nothing more.
Katie should have wondered why she had to be driven so far away for several days for that short acting job which could have been filmed anywhere - - there was no "set." They played her video back for her to watch, which only showed a closeup of her from the waist up with nothing behind her. That video could have been filmed anywhere.
Katie was shown "the script" which was only one paragraph - - she never asked to see the rest. She asked if the movie was a thriller - - and that was absolutely all that she ever asked. She never asked anything else about the movie, not even who else was acting in it. She never asked anything about Mr. Murray or Mr. Lewis. No matter how badly an actress needs the work, I can't imagine not asking anything at all.
The major plot hole in the movie was the fact that Katie looked so much like Julie Rose, the actress who she was supposedly replacing - - Katie said that they could have been sisters, but they actually looked identical. The ad for the acting role was shown, which simply said something like "caucasian woman, about 28 years old, about 5'7" tall, need to travel immediately" - - how could Mr. Murray expect to ever find someone who looked exactly like Julie Rose from an ad like that? He wasn't really looking for an actress, he was looking for a lookalike - - and for Katie to be identical was really unbelievable. And, Mr. Murray was very lucky that Katie didn't have an agent to complicate his plot.
So, after just the new hairdo, Katie was so identical to Julie Rose that even Julie Rose's sister couldn't identify Katie? And, Katie was also identical to the sister (Evelyn) so that when Katie put on Evelyn's coat and hat, even Dr. Lewis couldn't tell that it wasn't Evelyn? We are never told that Julie Rose and Evelyn were identical twins (were they?) but, certainly, Katie could not have resembled them both enough so that no one could tell the difference. Katie's voice even sounded identical to both Julie Rose and Evelyn?
Katie did not find anything strange, and she wasn't afraid to be in a big house in the middle of nowhere. She trusted Mr. Murray and Dr. Lewis when she knew nothing about them or "the movie" or the location of the house. Supposedly, the phone lines were down because of the storm (this was before cellphones existed) and the car wouldn't start because of the storm. So, Katie expected that Mr. Murray would drive her home the next morning. But she never got upset or panicked or worried that she couldn't speak to her husband.
Katie told her husband that she would call him when she arrived at the job. When he never received a call, he attempted to call her at the number that she gave him. When he found out that the number was a fake (there wasn't even such an area code), he didn't call the police. When more than a day passed and he hadn't heard from her, the husband should have been extremely worried - - his wife left with a strange man during a storm and he hadn't heard from her.
Mr. Murray and Dr. Lewis made a careless mistake by throwing Katie's driver's license into the fireplace where she could have (and did) see it. I thought that they were too smart (and worked too hard on their plot) to make this mistake. They should have made sure that Katie's ID was totally burned, or they should have just hidden it somewhere.
Even after Katie found photos of Julie Rose's dead body, she still trusted the two men. She didn't wonder why there were photos of "the suicide" and she didn't think that it was strange that she wasn't told that Julie Rose was dead. It was only when she saw her ID in the fireplace that realized that she was in danger.
Once Katie realized that she was in danger, it was not smart of her to rush to the phone to attempt a call. Assuming that the phones were working again, how could she have made a call for help when the two men were in hearing distance? She should have tried to remain calm and then attempt an escape in the middle of the night, when the two men were asleep, because surely, they were going to notice that she left the house and they would go after her. How far did she think she could go without a coat in a storm? She knew that she was in the middle of nowhere. She tried to open car doors - - did she really think that those cars would be unlocked, and if they were, that the keys to drive those cars would have been left inside?
It also was not smart of Katie to drink that hot chocolate - - at that point, she knew that she was in danger, so why would she trust a drink from them? After her attempted escape, as soon as she warmed up and calmed down, she should have attempted to fight them (at that point, to wait until the middle of the night would not have made sense because they then knew that she wanted to escape). She had "weapons" all around her - - the fire pokers and other heavy objects around the room and whatever was in the kitchen - - and she really only had to overtake Mr. Murray because Dr. Lewis was in a wheelchair. Of course, it is easy to say that - - but it is difficult to think clearly when you are terrified - - and, once they drugged her, it was all over for her.
When I saw that the phone line had been cut, I assumed that there would be another working phone somewhere in that big house - - surely, the two men would not leave themselves without a phone. But, I thought that it was strange that there was a working phone in the attic - - why would there be a phone in a dusty attic that was obviously not being used for anything? When Katie found the working phone, she should have immediately called the police. But it was good that she called her husband because the police were no help to her and it was the call to her husband that actually saved her in the end.
When Katie woke up and discovered her bandaged hand, I screamed along with her. That scene really scared me.
Mary Steenburgen's acting in the last scene was amazing. By the time that her husband got to her, she was in shock and remained in shock through to the drive away in the police car. The look of shock on her face stayed with me even after the credits rolled.
I found many holes in this story. But I am still giving it 5 stars because I loved this movie, it terrified me, and it absolutely held my attention to the end. I couldn't wait to see what would happen next and how it would end. At one point, I actually screamed. That all deserves 5 stars from me because so few movies do that for me. And, of course, I love Mary Steenburgen, no matter what she is in.
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| Additional Blu-ray options | Edition | Discs | Price | New from | Used from |
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June 1, 2015 "Please retry" | — | 1 |
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| — | $11.00 |
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