IN DREAMS
Apples are NOT SCARY. EVER!
This movie suffers from two core (heh heh) problems.
One is its basic concept. It's one of those "I have a psychic link with a serial killer" movies. If I were to make an estimate, I would guess that there have been approximately ONE BILLION "I have a psychic link with a serial killer" movies made. And of those one billion movies, not one of them was done well. Not one.
One billion movies, and not one has amounted to shit. Just what the silly twits at Dreamworks thought would make this one stand out from the pack, I don't know.
The other problem is that it tries to make apples scary. But you can't make apples scary. What could be a less scary fruit than an apple? I can understand a banana being scary. They're phallic, which is threatening to some. I can understand grapes being scary, all bunched together, like they're conspiring against you. I can understand raspberries being scary, since they kinda look like a hairy fat guy's nipple on a cold cold day.
But apples ain't scary. And, by the way, neither is Robert Downey Jr., who must have filmed his scenes between crack binges and prison sentences. Annette Bening plays the psychic chick, and Downey plays the killer. The rest of the movie you probably can already figure out.
Anyway, I'll give credit where it's due. Great music from Elliot Goldenthal. And there's a very cool back story involving an entire town that was evacuated in the 60's to be drowned forever in the making of a reservoir. Too bad that it's almost entirely dropped about a third of the way through and has nothing to do with anything anyway. And yes, director Neil Jordan did what he could with the meager material.
Strange thing is, even if this movie was good (a good "I have a psychic link with a serial killer" movie? Well, use your imagination.), it would have bombed anyway. Between its lame title and its completely baffling, doesn't-pique-your-curiosity- at-all poster, nobody would have known or cared what it was about, and thus would still have stayed away.
Just like you did. Just like you still should.