The Three Acts:The initial tableaux: Luke celebrates his 21st birthday by getting drunk with his friends and perhaps laid. He's not used to being drunk, and takes no measures to protect himself. He wakes up from being passed out because someone phones him. He discovers his friend dead and hacked up in his bathroom. He gets another call that hooks him up with Sam, a suspended, unstable police sergeant. The police soon are swarming over his flat. Sam knows the presiding detective, Hackman; they have a prickly history.Delineation of conflicts: The police want to question Luke; Luke wants to keep his freedom. Sam wants to solve this case, since it involves indirectly her murdered sister Lucy. Hackman wants Sam to get lost. The murderer likes playing with them as well as killing people. He kidnaps people, then forces them to do his bidding. Resolution: The principals need to identify the kidnapper/murderer.

It seems like whenever the term 'serial killer' is used, we get a film so dark and dreary that instead of doing what the director intends, it just ends up being an unwatchable mess - we can probably blame 'Se7en.'I assume this type of film making is used to make the viewer feel more involved with how the main characters are feeling, emotionally and psychically - beat down and depressed. But do we, the viewers, really need to feel beat down and depressed while watching your films? We're not all idiots, we don't need you to point out every single detail.'Scar Tissue' is, as stated above, dark, dreary, dull - and the acting is all over the place. At first I thought Danny Horn and Charity Wakefield's inconsistent acting served a purpose - but I realized by the end of the film, I was putting too much thought into it. They're simply mediocre, at best. Danny Horn's character seemed lost and confused at every turn - and Charity Wakefield spent the entire film either snarling aimlessly, or being that sweet girl with the horrifying past. Neither worked.Random Ramblings of a Madman: This is my first time seeing Danny Horn and Charity Wakefield - and you can be sure that if/when I see their names listed in any future films, I'll think twice before sparing 90+ minutes of my life.

It's a thriller more than a horror. The acting is heavy, but that's to be expected from the type of characters portrayed. The two main protagonists carried the story pretty well. Although I do confess that I found the female lead somewhat cliché. Anyone who has read my other reviews knows that I am very picky about the "strong woman" trope that we see in movies these days. You know the sort, some really cute girl gets a part where plays a tough cop with a tragic history, she beats men up like they're children at the playground, she has no interest in relationships or other girlie things, engages in destructive behavior like drinking, having a messy apartment, and staying out too late, she lashes out with seemingly random violence at anyone around her.. I never enjoy such characters. It has always bored me with men, and it doesn't impress me any more with women.The modern movie's propensity for pushing women into roles traditionally held by men usually leaves me shaking my head with disappointment, as it can be particularly challenging for a woman to fit into a mold that wasn't designed for her. The be fair, the lead actress in this film pulled it off much better than most women who attempt it. Kudos to her, she was convincing throughout.The male lead pretty much did what he was expected to do: follow along until things go clearly against him, then go his own way. Really he didn't do a whole lot in this movie until the end. While the girl gets a heavy background to work with, his was sort of dubious and unclear for much of the time.Atmospherically, the movie is dark. The idea is to delve into the depths of human depravity with the viewer in tow. Child murder (murder in general really), drugs, sex, violence, bullies at work.. It's all pulled together to stew itself into a dark adventure that aims to leave you thinking about how everyone around you might be harboring sick thoughts and desires. The filming and directing are consistent with the idea, and it serves to keep the atmosphere appropriate.There is some gore, more or less inventively played with, and there is violence and a little bit of sex, but none of them in excess.While the movie is consistently gripping, towards the end it makes what I personally view as a mistake: it ties the plot to a human ethical dilemma. It's almost like using a political debate as fuel for your scary movie ideas. The realism falls away a little and you are left with a mess of ideas rather than a clear single idea for the actors to act upon. At that point nothing anyone does really makes much sense. At least, that's how it seemed to me.Good for a Saturday night movie, but unfortunately nothing special.