"It's a great movie... but don't see it." 

That's the recommendation I was given about The Cell.  And I certainly can see why.  I'm glad I saw it, although I'm probably not going to rush to the video store to buy it.  It's a wholly original, fully realized, gorgeous vision of hell, and it's not someplace I want to visit regularly.  

The movie takes place in a landscape of nightmares-- a place that haunts your head for days after seeing the movie.  It's gorgeous, inventive, and unexpected.  Setting the film inside the mind of a schizophrenic allows for some leaps of imagination that would just not be possible in a traditional film, and it lends validity and authority to the wildness of the imagery.

The Cell tells the story of a psychologist named Catherine, played with quiet competence by Jennifer Lopez.  She's one of the pioneers of a procedure that allows her to literally travel, virtual reality style, into someone's mind.  As the movie opens, she is inside the mind of a kid named Edward, trying to coax him out of his mysterious coma.  The landscape of the mind is mostly beautiful, and Catherine is in full control.

In the meantime, an extremely twisted serial killer named Carl (Vincent D'Onofrio) is continuing his pattern of sadistic torture and murder.  He kidnaps girls and imprisons them in a glass cell, leaving them with food and water, and slowly fills up the cell to drown them.  The process is fully automated, and Carl gets his kicks after the fact by watching the girl die on split screen video.  (He also gets his kicks in far more cringe-making ways, but I won't spoil it.)

When Carl is caught, he slips into a coma.  The trouble is: there's still a girl missing, and nobody knows where he's taken her.   The FBI agent played by Vince Vaughn (who somehow knows that the torture chamber is on a timer) convinces Catherine to travel inside Carl's head.  However, in this mind, Carl is "the king of a very twisted kingdom" and Catherine has to avoid getting sucked into his mind, believing it's real and becoming trapped there. 

The film is expertly paced.  Catherine is trying to "save" the abused child that still lives in Carl's psyche, and at the same time, FBI Agent Novak is trying to save an innocent girl.  It's complex and tense, and the viewer is equally invested in both quests.    

I keep mentioning the stunning visuals because they are easily the best thing about a very good film.  It's amazing that the shots work as well as they do-- who came up with this stuff?.  The scene with the hooks, the scene with the horse, the three whispering women-- they all stick in the brain.  But so do the visuals that accompany the opening credits, and scenes of people talking by a fountain, and any of the more conventional images you find throughout. 

The Cell reminded me of a torture museum I went to, once.  Morbid curiosity got me there, impressively visceral tableaus kept me there, and the nightmares followed me home.   It was a vivid, expertly presented, memorable visit. 

And I'm never going back.