ANAMORPH

ANAMORPH (2007). Director/co-writer: Henry Miller.

New York City detective Stan Aubray (Willem Dafoe) and his sexy new partner Carl (Scott Speedman) investigate when a serial killer starts using the corpses of his victims as art, painting and posing them in specific, generally grotesque tableaus and then cluing the cops in to where they should stand to get the best "appreciation" of his ghastly projects. This aspect of this fair-to-middling serial killer thriller [with few real thrills] is intriguing, although nowadays it's the sort of thing you see every week on CSI and Criminal Minds. The movie is not badly acted, but it's no great surprise that it was released direct-to-video. James Rebhorn is the police chief, and Deborah Harry, formerly of the rock group Blondie, shows up briefly as an unnamed ":neighbor."

Verdict: Good ideas don't always make great movies. **.