Movie Review: The Deaths of Ian Stone

If you enjoy dark thrillers like the Alex Proyas directed Dark City or The Matrix,The Deaths of Ian Stone from director Dario Piana should be admired as a satisfying sci-fi horror entry.

Ian Stone & Phil Connors (Bill Murray in Groundhog Day) have something in common. They're both stuck in a kind of time loop - reliving things over repeatedly. For Connors, it's the same frigid day lived over and over again. Ultimately his Zen like acceptance of fate and loving presence of Andie MacDowell combine to break the cosmic spell which imprisoned him.

For Ian Stone (Mike Vogel), things go along a lot more violently. His identity, days and lives are different, but always end in fatal fashion - his gruesome death. Like the tortured cyber hero Neo (Keanu Reeves) in The Matrix or equally stressed John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) in Dark City, our hero instinctively knows there's some great hidden truth to it all. They can't put it into words, but their subconscious offers wisps of truth floating in cloudy nightmares or worse waking daydreams which threaten to demolish their tenuous grip on reality.

A kind of stabilizing anchor which steadies Stone in each life is a beautiful girl. Like McDowell in Groundhog Day or Jennifer Connelly in Dark City, beautiful Jenny (Christina Cole) is present in each of Stone's lives, however she too plays a different role. As Stone's jumbled mind sorts out enough to start recalling lives and a mysterious older man warns him he's being targeted for death, we learn he's not quite what he seems. The answer is both terrifying and fascinating.