Michael Cooney
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Identity (2003)
Directed by James Mangold
influenced by Jack Frost (1997), Jack Frost 2: The Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman (2000)
Plot
Writer Michael Cooney ("Jack Frost") uses the single location thriller format of "Ten Little Indians" to pay homage to "Psycho" with a twist on that film's psychiatric underpinnings while director James Mangold ("Heavy," "Kate & Leopold") keeps the action barreling forward, roving about the limited confines of a desolate motel with flair.
And screenwriter Michael Cooney is also responsible for the odious and terrifying Jack Frost , which may be a first for a screenwriter: He wrote a comedy that was horrifyingly bad, and now, a horror movie that's hilariously awful.
Considering that screenwriter Michael Cooney was responsible (as both writer and director) for Jack Frost and Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman, Identity's genre roots are probably inescapable.
We can blame writer Michael Cooney, the man responsible for writing and directing "Jack Frost" and "Jack Frost 2," you know, the straight to video horror films about a killer snowman, for the mess called "Identity."
Although "Identity" boasts a talented cast that fleshes out its characters to an uncommon degree for what is ostensibly just a fancy slasher flick, screenwriter Michael Cooney (scribe of the "Jack Frost" cult-horror pictures) lifts the motel part of the plot almost wholesale from Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians."
Written by Michael Cooney (Jack Frost) and directed by James Mangold (Girl, Interrupted, Kate & Leopold) the film is tightly and cleverly constructed -- both in the way that it follows the And Then There Were None motif and in the way it does not drop the ball in the final minutes, as many horror films do (even last year's above-average Below suffered from a poor ending).