The Ugly might be New Zealand's answer to The Silence of the Lambs. It's always engaging and stylish, but with a bit too much psychobabble and cliched "mommy hurt me, so now I kill women" backstories. That said, it executes these cliches with a good deal of panache and excitement, so that you don't have a lot of time to stop and think "oh, gee. I feel like I've seen this before."
On a dark and stormy night, a psychiatrist named Karen arrives at a mental hospital to size up a serial killer named Simon. It soon becomes clear that Simon might be an expert manipulator and that nothing he says is true.
The Ugly loves flashbacks. We get all kinds of flashbacks from Simon getting bullied by his classmates, to his first love, his abusive man-hating mother, and to all his murders. Some of these are executed quite well with tons of interesting transitions and director Scott Reynolds shows a good degree of style in these scenes. He's also made the choice to make all the blood that emerges from Simon's victims black instead of red (perhaps making one think that Simon sees his victims as less than human?).
Story-wise, The Ugly might not be anything we haven't seen before, but it has enough fresh takes, style, and good performances to make it worthy of recommending.
On a dark and stormy night, a psychiatrist named Karen arrives at a mental hospital to size up a serial killer named Simon. It soon becomes clear that Simon might be an expert manipulator and that nothing he says is true.
The Ugly loves flashbacks. We get all kinds of flashbacks from Simon getting bullied by his classmates, to his first love, his abusive man-hating mother, and to all his murders. Some of these are executed quite well with tons of interesting transitions and director Scott Reynolds shows a good degree of style in these scenes. He's also made the choice to make all the blood that emerges from Simon's victims black instead of red (perhaps making one think that Simon sees his victims as less than human?).
Story-wise, The Ugly might not be anything we haven't seen before, but it has enough fresh takes, style, and good performances to make it worthy of recommending.