Nine Lives [DVD]

Ms.Hilton makes a brief appearance before being rapidly dispatched - not before we endure a 20 minute scene-setting dinner in which the characters reveal that they are all exceedingly affluent, old school friends with no purpose in life other than to end up as fodder for a slaughter-fest. And not before the aforementioned young woman briefly appears déshabillé (almost).

Nine elegant young things assemble in a Scottish mansion to celebrate the 21st birthday of one of their number. A couple of minions serve them a sumptuous repast and leave them with copious amounts of alcohol. Ms.Hilton's escort then has a disturbing experience in a bathroom, discovers an ancient volume left over from the defeat of the Jacobites in 1746 (wrongly described as 1745 in the film), and launches into a fit of murder.

At best, it's interesting. At worst, and in the main, it's excruciating. The reason for the murderous assault appears to be some desire to pay back the English for their treatment of the Scots. Now, I might not be entirely unsympathetic to such an idea ... but, frankly, it's appallingly done. As an explanation of why this murderous spirit should return to exact retribution at this particular moment, it's extraordinarily tenuous.

In terms of horror, it's too slow, too predictable, too unbelievable, and lacks any sense of Scottishness. The mansion in which it takes place seems to have more rooms and corridors than the entire Hilton chain, never mind the Paris one. The ghost, or spirit of retribution, has probably spent the last two hundred and fifty years wandering around looking for someone to kill, and has finally got lucky ... just when there was a film crew available. Frankly, if it was going to kill anyone, it would have been the interior designers who refurbished the place!

It's difficult to sympathise with any of the characters. They're plastic. They have little to say, and, though they're pretty, they fail to capture your sympathies. You sit, praying that they'll hurry up and die just so you can discover if the end is as innocuous as the one you anticipate. One death leads to another and you wonder how the survivor is going to explain things ... "well, officer, it appears there was this troubled spirit living in a book".

Tedious, hastily conceived and constructed, lacking in any sophistication or depth (despite its allusions to existentialism and Schroedinger's Cat), and about as Scottish as Japanese whisky - i.e., no character, no flavour, and instantly forgettable. The only nightmare this will cause is angst at the realisation you wasted good money and several unrecoverable minutes of your life watching it. In short, a turkey with a kilt on (McHilton tartan, of course)!