TARSEM SINGH comes from a music video background, and it shows. Every frame of his debut feature is total eye candy which is all well and good when you are making music videos, but stretching the format to feature length is taking it too far.

OK, so The Cell isn't a complete failure. It has an interesting, all be it not entirely original premise, and a hot cast.

Carl Stargher (Vincent D'Onofrio) is a serial killer who has gone into overdrive. He has been kidnapping and ritually slaughtering young women for several years but the acceleration in his workload has caused him to become sloppy.

When FBI agent Peter Novak (Vince Vaughn) finds his latest victim he also finds several clues that lead the Feds straight to the killer's house. Unfortunately Stargher is in a coma due to a rare brain disorder. In short he ain't comin' back.

Worse still, his latest victim is holed up somewhere with less than 40 hours to go before she is ceremonially drowned in a fully-automated cell. Nobody but Stargher knows where she is. Enter radical child psychiatrist Catherine Deane (Jennifer Lopez) who is using a revolutionary technique in her therapy. She literally enters the minds of her patients via an electronic portal.

There follows some of the most stunningly realised nightmare images ever to grace the big screen. The initial journey into Stargher's mind is genuinely unsettling and sets the stage for something truly terrifying. Unfortunately the movie never lives up to its promise. A splash of gore, a bit of torture, some cheesy titillation -- it all becomes a bit too predictable, and only the remarkable imagery (which is derivative of numerous other horror movies) makes up for the cop-out final reel.

Every credit to the unfeasibly sexy Lopez who proves she has real star quality, despite a woefully underwritten role.

For me Vincent D'Onfrio can do no wrong and I really do wish we'd had more of his "conscious" character to relish. I have never watched scenes of such sickening depravity in a legitimate release, and I can't imagine anyone else carrying them off so well. He is far scarier pre-coma.

So the verdict? Parts of this movie are incredibly shocking. It certainly is not for the faint hearted -- horror aficionados should think Event Horizon. A great build up, but I left feeling more than a little bit cheated!