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A group of 10 people, all ostensibly complete strangers to each other, find themselves stranded in an
isolated desert motel while a raging storm prevents them from leaving. As the storm gets worse, people start dying, one by one, in very
gruesome ways. It is left up to a former police officer (John Cusack) to solve the case. Also with Ray Liotta, Amanda Peet, Clea DuVall,
John Hawkes, William Lee Scott, John C. McGinley, Rebecca De Mornay, Jake Busey, Alfred Molina and Pruitt Taylor Vince. Directed by James
Mangold. [1:27]
SEX/NUDITY 3 - A man lies in his underwear in bed, a woman puts whipped cream on his stomach and licks part of it off her
finger. A man kisses a woman. A woman's top hangs open and exposes part of her breast. A woman wears dresses that reveal cleavage, and a
woman wears low-cut pants that reveal her lower back. Someone makes a remark about pornographic magazines.
VIOLENCE/GORE 8 - People are murdered in very gruesome ways: A woman is decapitated and we see blood spray on a shower
curtain she carries over her head and see her severed head (with a bloody neck) in a clothes dryer. A man lies dead and covered with blood
after having been stabbed (we see him a couple of times) and a man is found dead after having a baseball bat shoved down his throat (we
see him a few times). A man is hit by a truck and pinned against a wall (we see a bloody hand and then the bloody corpse later) and a car
explodes after a boy and woman get in it. A man is stabbed in the back with a sharpened piece of metal (we see him later in the trunk of a
car) and a man is strangled with a chain around his neck. A woman is hit by a speeding car (we see this a couple of times and she lies on
the road with a huge gash on her throat). A man stitches up a gaping wound on a woman's neck (it is very bloody). A frozen, frosted, dead
body falls out of a walk-in freezer. A man shoots a man in the chest and shoots at a woman. Two men shoot each other repeatedly and fall
dead (they are both covered with blood). A man holds a knife to a woman's throat. A man carries an unconscious woman and they are both
covered with blood. We see photographs of murder victims covered with blood in several scenes. A woman is threatened by someone holding a
garden tool. A woman talks about Native Americans dying after they were relocated and left without water. Two men shove and punch a man
repeatedly (he has a bloody nose), a man is hit on the back with a fire extinguisher, a man punches a man in the face (he falls
unconscious), a man grabs a man around the throat, and a man drags a woman out of a car. A woman opens a door, sees the shadow of someone
raising a knife, she screams, jumps out a window and runs away. A man pounds on and kicks a door repeatedly. A man and a woman yell and
argue bitterly, and a woman cries and acts hysterically. A man has a bloody hole on his shirt. A car has a blow out and swerves on a wet
road. Lightning strikes the roof of a motel and it caves in. A cut electrical cable dances around spraying sparks. We see a series of
stick drawings of people with blood pouring from their mouths.
PROFANITY 7 - 29 F-words and its derivatives, 9 sexual references, 19 scatological terms, 13 mild obscenities, 9 religious
profanities, 17 religious exclamations. [profanity glossary]
DISCUSSION TOPICS - Child abandonment, neglect, physical and emotional abuse, mass murders, dreams, ambitions, the death
penalty, multiple personality disorder, pregnancy, prostitution.
MESSAGE - Things are not always as they seem, especially in murder mysteries that involve isolated motels.
(Note: People are shown smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol and taking pills.)
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