Non stop suspense blended with more than a little over the top comic violence a la Pulp Fiction mark this psychological thriller from director James Mangold (Kate and Leopold, Girl Interrupted). Starring John Cusack, Ray Liotta and Amanda Peet as three of the ten unplanned guests at a run down motel on a dark and stormy night, the early sequence in flashback on the rain drenched highway is a fundamental lesson on how not to drive a car in the rain. Each member of the hapless group has something to hide. In the style of Ten Little Indians, this is more accurately Agatha-Christie-on-crack, as one by one, the ill-fated group meets with catastrophe.

John Cusack plays the former cop and hired limo driver for ultra self-involved actress Caroline Suzanne (De Mornay). Their car hits a woman on the roadside as her husband changes a flat tire (punctured by the discarded high heeled shoe of hooker Paris ((Amanda Peet)) as she speeds down the highway in the first of many preposterous coincidences). With their young son looking on, they hasten mortally wounded mom to the closest place for help, and are soon joined by other stranded travelers. Newlyweds Ginny and Lou (Duvall and Will Lee Scott), Liotta as a harried and intense cop transporting a dangerous convict (Jake Busey) surprise the bumbling innkeeper Larry (John Hawkes) with more excitement in the first ten minutes than he’s imagined in ten lifetimes.

Add to the mix a psychiatrist (Al Molina) trying to save a convicted mass murderer less than 24 hrs away from execution. New evidence that his multiple personality disordered patient is not responsible for the killings has him bringing a gaggle of lawyers and the governor together for a midnight meeting at the 11^th hour. The tranquil opening sequence of the film has Molina reviewing audio tapes of his patient, who was abandoned at a motel as a young boy and found two years later. The boy then spent a troubled childhood in bad situations, eventually leading to his conviction for the murders. As the action occasionally jumps back to this midnight meeting, the events at the motel go from bad to bizarre.

In edge of your seat anticipation, as the deluge continues unabated outside, confused identities and assumptions confound and perplex. The roads are washed out, the phone lines down and the electricity goes. As the night wears on at a furious pace, Ginny suggests they may all be connected in some way. Cusack acts and thinks like a former cop as he takes on a gatekeeper role vying with Liotta for first in command.

The odd blend of black comedy mingled with an attempt at insight into the mind of a disturbed killer make for plot points that don’t quite add up but detract only slightly from the edge of your seat thrills of a straight horror film. What it lacks in accomplished storytelling, it makes up for with fine performances from all. Although the laughs, mercifully, soften some of the gruesome details, a few genuine surprises from writer Michael Cooney wrap up the story satisfactorily. The soundtrack unrelentingly pummels with the urgent beat of the rain punctuated by the thud of bodies being hit by various vehicles. Overall, bloody good fun with some mildly provocative thoughts on the nature of identity, specifically, the assumptions we make about others, and the limitations of psychiatry in unraveling abnormal psychology.