Identity

Horror movies routinely teach us plenty, but the lesson being imparted in Identity seems more like common knowledge: Don’t get stranded in an abandoned hotel with John Cusak and Ray Liotta. So when 10 strangers do just that in a run-down hotel in the middle of the desert and strange things start to happen—mainly murder—we don’t feel the least bit sorry for ’em. After the trapped realize they’re on their own while someone is cleaning up like a deranged housekeeper, Rhodes (Liotta) and Ed (Cusak, still wearing a trench coat after all these years) do their best to catch the killer among them. Meanwhile, a hooker (Amanda Peet), a husband (John C. McGinley), his ailing wife, and their child, and some other role players fight off death for as long as is possible in a movie that doesn’t even reach an hour and a half. Liotta’s performance gets ornerier while Peet makes us ornerier—and Cusak does his best not to curl his lip. But before long, the remaining characters (and bigger-name cast members) notice that it’s not about murder anymore, and a strange kink in the story saves Identity from middling horror-movie grounds. It’s good to see a scary flick that doesn’t devolve into a senseless splatterfest. See, it’s the tasteful violence that we’re all about.