Sublime (DVD)

The tagline for Sublime, the directorial debut of über TV producer Tony Krantz, is: "Maybe... if you spend your life worrying... then the only way that your life will have meaning is if what you fear becomes real." Even though it's not terribly succinct, that's an apt nutshell description of the film.

If you like your horror movies deep and philosophical, peppered with narrative ellipsis, and carrying more messages than Western Union, then you just might like Sublime. Heavily inspired by the Terri Schiavo right-to-die story and the decay of the U.S. healthcare system, the story follows rich, successful IT consultant George Grieves (Tom Cavanagh), and his descent into awful oblivion when he's admitted to the hospital for what turns out to be anything but a routine operation.

Krantz and his DP, Dermott Downs, make the most of their limited sets (a living room and a hospital room, basically) and although the pair's small-screen roots do show here and there, Sublime boasts some striking and memorable illustrations of gothic terror.

Erik Jendresen's heavy-handed, humorless screenplay doesn't do any favors for Krantz's surreal, nightmarish visual style, but it doesn't hurt it too much either. The main problem I had with the film was its redundancy (however, the endless flashbacks to George's 40th birthday party and some of the more pontificating dialogue may have been trimmed… I saw a very early cut of the film in 2006).

The acting is above-par. The main players are Cavanagh, and Kathleen York as the long-suffering Mrs. Grieves, but it's the peripheral players who steal the show. Cas Anvar is solid as the doctor who may have a hidden agenda, and Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs (yep, Freddie "Boom Boom" Washington from Welcome Back Kotter!) is electrifying as the nasty nurse who's anything but a Florence Nightingale.

Sublime is sometimes slow and disjointed, but it's not altogether bad and it's refreshing to see a horror movie that's not only not a remake or Asian-inspired, but has something to say.

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