One year after Mike Lawford's young son disappeared during a Halloween carnival, he begins to experience strange, unsettling visions, and terrifying messages he can't explain.
Together with his estranged wife, he will stop at nothing to unravel the mystery and find their son, but in doing so, he unearths a legend that refuses to remain buried in the past........
You know that an actor is in trouble when every DVD cover featuring them graces the words 'Academy Award Winner' before their name, and their face is obviously airbrushed on to a separate body, because they didn't have the time to pose.
What is particularly funny about this cover is that it's the exact same pose Cage had for last years 'Classic' left behind. Oh, and they always look a lot skinnier than they actually are.
Who can remember the days where Seagal had those hilarious photo-shopped pictures. I just used to buy the DVD for the cover.
So Cage decides to go down the horror route, and whilst the idea is sound, a kind of Jacobs Ladder meets a very dodgy version of Don't Look Now, the makers of the film just do not know how to generate a scare, or even an air of tension.
So we begin with the boy having visions of a vulture circling him, and then disappearing whilst Cage is buying him Ice-cream in a comedy cowboy outfit.
And then it's almost a year later, where Cage has turned into the desperate father looking for answers. This is where the film falls apart, because they don't use the full potential of Cage and his wonderful maniacal acting arc.
Nope, they have him spend the rest of the film looking concerned and perplexed while he meets a whole bunch of weirdos who talk to him in riddles and send home on wild goose chases.
He begins to see his son here, there, and everywhere, and as we all know in films like this, once he gets to where his son should be its someone who looks just slightly different.
It's your typical cookie cutter, almost family friendly horror, which features a strange scene involving school kids in masks and a teacher, who is claiming that she knows nothing, and then proceeds to explain the whole myth of the title (there is a reason why his son went missing, and it's a little bland).
So all in all, it's another bland effort from Cage, but to be fair on him, he just isn't given anything to get his teeth into, other than playing concerned dad running around the streets.
But there was a reassurance toward the end. Remember that Kevin Costner horror released a few years back called The New Daughter (didn't think so). Well that vanished without a trace, but soon after, he was given a new lease of life with supporting roles, and now he's back with bigger, cinematic releases.
Here's hoping this is the beginning of the end of Nics slump.
In Cage we trust.......
