Shadow Hours is a scuzzy slice of nightmarish Los Angeles underground sleaze that plays like a disturbing cross between 1970's gutter poetry exploitation and grunge rock 1990's fever dream cinema that you'd be lucky to find at 4am on some obscure corner of cable TV. Balthazar Getty plays a recovering drug and alcohol addict trying to get his life straight, aided by his doting wife (ever gorgeous, underrated Rebecca Gayheart). He takes a crummy job at a run down 24/7 gas station in a part of town infested with every freak, creep and creature of the night imaginable. His paranoid loon of a boss (the inimitable Brad Dourif) carries a 357 on his shift and warns him of the impending danger the night offers. He's soon alone on night shift, and is visited by shadowy stranger Stuart Chappell (Peter Weller). Weller has always had a sly way with words and a dark, edgy restlessness that he puts to frightening use here. He leads Getty down a a black leather sinkhole of drug abuse, kinky sex clubs and depraved acts of inhuman despair. It's never really clear who Chappell is or why he morally corrupts poor Getty seemingly for no reason, but there's some interesting metaphysical implications near the end that makes one wonder. Badass character actor Peter Greene plays a weary detective on Weller's trail, and there's equally downbeat work from Johnny Whitworth, Corin Nemic and Frédéric Forrest. This is a stomach churning pool of nauseating excess, and is only for people who can swallow their cinema with a handful of sewage. Me being the crazy buff who's into all the weird cobweb infested corners that movies have to offer, loved every bodily fluid stained minute of it.

The devil feeds from your weaknesses and enstills good in temptation. "Shadow Hours" definitely understands this, and shows an interesting Lucifer who dwells in the seedy underworld of Los Angelos. To say the least, I wasn't blown away by the story's originality, but director Isaac H. Eaton has some brilliant style tricks to keep it fun and intriguing. He is an adroit director working with a mediocre script, and the results are surprisingly good. Balthazaar Ghetty plays Michael Halloway, a recovering alcoholic who tries to support himself as well as his wife Chloe by working at a seedy gas station on graveyard shift. In this environment, he's bound to see some interesting things. It seems everyone who comes through has exhausted themselves with something...most likely some sort of sin. They are all running on empty as they scurry through the night. There are wonderful sequences where gas meters rise as different things happen, communicating this theme perfectly. Anyway, he runs into a mugger and a homeless man (who symbolizes his bottom of the barrel outlook), but most importantly, a writer named Stuart Chappell (played by Peter Weller, in easily one of his best performances). Chappell has a strange fixation on Michael, and he takes care of him, clothing him with nice suits, and giving him tons of money to gamble. From the start, it is obvious this guy's a little shady, however. He neglects the fact that Michael is recovering on AA and influences him to start drinking again. Soon, he plunges Michael into a truly harrowing underworld of fight clubs, gambling, drugs and sex. In one of the most disturbing scenes of recent memory, they go to a bondage club where people get sadomasochistic pleasure from torture. At first, I was angry that Eaton would use this smut to manipulate his audience into feeling shocked (like how Todd Solondz did in his terrible film "Happiness"). Then I realized, Chappell, a satan figure, is indeed masochistic in that he feeds off his victim's pain. Little did Michael know as he looked at these twisted acts, that he was being used as a partner to Chappell's atrocity. When Michael becomes closer with Chappell, he realizes how much of a lie this man really is. But the perks of being with him are too great, and soon Michael goes too deep into the dark side, hurting Chloe and damaging the new life he forged after leaving AA. I didn't like how the film ends. It takes an easy (and largely taken) way out, keeping itself on a level of simplicity. I believe Eaton is a genius director, but he sells himself short in "Shadow Hours". I did like a lot of things in this film. I loved the performances by Getty (who also produced), and more so Peter Weller. He plays Stuart as attractive, fun and seemingly caring, but always dark somewhere deep. I liked how the story was paced and told, but it is lacking in overall freshness. (2 and 1/2 out of 4)

This ultimately pointless little excursion into perversion starts out promisingly enough: desperate ex-cokester (Balthazar Getty) with pregnant wife working the night shift at a sleazy gas station seeks something, ANYthing, to offer escape from his dreary, drugless, thrill-less existence. Enter Peter Weller (Robo Cop himself!), driving the sleek car, wearing the sleek clothes, walkin' the sleek walk and talkin' the sleekest talk poor Balthazar's ever heard. Naturally, he follows his new bud off into the night and is taken on a depraved journey that perversely fills his void. In no time he's back on the blow, of course, and he's also addicted to his new best friend, who continuously ups the ante (best friend that he is) by exposing Balthazar to deeper, more depraved kicks. (There's a lot of s&m activity, people suspended by hooks, that sort of thing, and there's a fight club scenario, and of course there has to be Russian Roulette - what would depravity be without Russian Roulette, I ask you.) Robo's doing this, you see (or rather he TELLS us) so Little Balthy can hit rock bottom and rise from his ashes, purified and reborn, blah blah blah. This would be good, if it actually happened - catharsis is Number One in MY book. However, by the time this sordid sleaze plays itself to its crazed conclusion, NOTHING is really changed, there is no real catharsis for our 'hero' (and I use the word VERY loosely here), and we don't even know whether Robo has actually committed the murders that have been taking place throughout the proceedings. By this time, though, guess what? You don't care! You just want to crawl into a clean, safe bed somewhere and sleep it off.

I especially like this one movie. It completely got me on the screen. It's a story about a ex-alcoholic/drug addict that works in a gas station by night. He has a wife and is starting a new life, but a guy starts to approach him and making him offers of lusty and desirable things. We then enter the world of this rich guy, a world of music clubs, girls, drugs and much more. A really entertaining night world, that can easily temptate anyone.This film is also somewhat well directed for the kind of film that is. It's a film worth seeing for everyone i think.