by Daniel Stephens

Created on: February 01, 2009

Every time I watch a Hollywood horror film I hope beyond all hope that it will scare me like the classics of twenty years ago. The Exorcist and The Omen still leave me checking over my shoulder, and you couldn't pay me to turn the light off. An American Werewolf In London still freaks me out, especially when David Naughton takes it upon himself to look directly into the camera lens during his first lycanthropic transformation - I'm shivering just thinking about it! The likes of Ridley Scott's Alien with its quiet empty corridors and brooding, slow burning terror, and Wes Craven's A Nightmare On Elm Street with its over-the-top violence and severe, haunting attack on something we all do everyday - sleep. Nineties horror films such as Scream have an edge, but they lack any real longevity while films that promise so much like Session 9 deliver so little.

So I arrive at the next jab at the genre, or at least I thought I did. From word of mouth and the theatrical trailer, a supernatural chiller looked to be entering my living room begging me to be frightened by it. It's these expectations that can kill off a film before it has even reached its twentieth minute. What I found was a brash, entertaining but flawed mystery thriller, that desperately tried to bring a strange true event to the screen by rooting it in a fictional story however, ultimately failing.

John Klein (Richard Gere) is still mourning the tragic death of his wife, when two years later, he mysteriously finds himself in a small town in West Virginia when his car breaks down. Klein soon realises that strange occurrences are happening in the town, which are confirmed by a local police sergeant (Laura Linney) who informs him that people are seeing a strange winged-like creature.

Director Mark Pellington, fresh from the success of the superb Arlington Road seems comfortable at the helm here. Shrouding each scene with an element of mystery, he continuously creates questions and never allows the audience to know exactly where he is taking his story. From shots from above and below to elaborate tracks and pans, he maintains the camera as an active participant, at times leaving you unsure whether you are peering through someone's eyes, or being suggested a metaphorical idea of a characters mood or feelings. He also utilises stylistic editing techniques to further possible ideas of where the story might be heading, and at times uses the editing to throw in a red-herring or two.

However, at times I did find his flashy

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