Best movie of this year hands down!

Best movie ever!

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

PARANOIA is a pretty uninteresting late addition to the run of psycho-thriller movies that had begun with FATAL ATTRACTION over a decade previously. This story has a young woman, played by Brigitte Barko who gives an indifferent performance, the sole survivor of a massacre by a serial killer which slaughtered her family. Years later, she's trying to live a normal life when she discovers that the killer is about to be released on parole. This low budget oddity singularly fails to deliver any thrills or suspense, but the narrative structure is quite interesting and there are enough twists to keep you mildly involved. The great Larry Drake, best known as the baddie in DARKMAN, gives the best performance as the killer.

To be honest, I mostly rented this to get a glimpse of one of my favorite almost-completely-unknown actors, Stephen Gevedon. After the first few minutes of truly horrendous dialog, I watched it on fast-forward until Stephen appeared! But one thing I will give this movie: it has a twist ending that's actually GOOD, makes sense, and works well. Ms. Bako is very beautiful and does her best with the aforementioned bad dialog. Sally Kirkland tries her best, but does not succeed very well. Larry Drake does his "I'm not Benny from L.A. LAW" serial killer thing. (This is not a spoiler; he is on the poster brandishing a big ol' knife.) I wish I could give this 2 1/2 stars on Netflix, but your choices are only 2 or 3, so I gave it 2.

Brigitte Bako gives a winning performance as Jana Mercer, a beautiful, sarcastic interior decorator who witnessed her family being murdered as a child by psycho Calvin Hawks (Larry Drake). Twenty years after the original crime, Jana (a night owl with a ultra-secure penthouse apartment) is again harassed via computer by Calvin, who informs her he's getting out on parole very soon and wants to be reunited. Unable to convince the authorities he's after her again, Jana retreats to the country with her new cop boyfriend. Guess who else shows up?Drake is amusing and creepy as the psycho who tracks her down, slits a librarians neck ("Just because I could.") and tells another woman "Fear is the distance between pain and nothing!" It's silly that a mass murderer would have a laptop and advanced internet access IN his prison cell and would be getting out on parole after killing three people (hell, or nowadays, maybe it isn't), but, that aside, this has several surprising and effective plot twists, some witty dialogue, a pretty twisted flashback and nice attempts at establishing characters.

I enjoy finding offbeat titles at the video store. Most that I find are pretty bad in the horror market. This film isn't Shakespeare, but Larry (DR Giggles) Drake is fun to watch. ** 2 stars. Give it a look on a rainy day.