This review reportedly contains spoilers. I can handle the truth.

The second femme-based iteration of Strangers On A Train I've seen this month -- again with the criss-cross murder plots and girl-girl makeout scenes -- this one's more firmly (if unwisely) positioned as a conventional thriller than Breaking The Girls, with the streamlined narrative inadvertently underlining the story's vapidity. The relentless victimization of Kill For Me's leads also left a bad taste, particularly in contrast to Babbit's empowered heroines. Nevertheless, a step up for Greenspan from his previous feature, the excruciating Adrien Brody vehicle Wrecked.

Such a thoroughly generic monster movie that it's puzzling why the filmmakers bothered to play this straight; the needlessly serious tone results in suffocating lethargy as it's unfathomable that anyone could find this either frightening or particularly compelling. The misguided relationship issue subplot creates serious pacing problems (essentially dragging the setup to a crawl) while failing to generate the desired empathy for the hero.

Some interesting sound design, but it eventually becomes evident that despite the reliance on slow motion aesthetics and meaningfully protracted shots on the inscrutable expression of our dazed heroine, this arty revenge film is psychologically vacant; there's little genuine insight here about gender dynamics (with Chick appallingly too on-the nose in setting some scenes in a feminist studies lecture) -- as seedy and outrageous as it was, Baise-Moi had more to say about gender politics and female empowerment. Nicole LaLiberte has an intriguing presence, and given some shared thematic similarity, there's a suitable nod to Audition.