THE HAUNTED AIRMAN

It's a thriller without thrills, and a psychological horror movie laden with clichés. Yet Robert Pattinson still manages to look like a vampire.

This is the class of movie where a one-way ticket to crazy town will lead you directly to Julian Sands. Poor Julian has never lived up to the potential of his crush-worthy role as George Emerson in A Room With a View, but I digress. Seems these days when he shows up on screen, you know that there is something sinister going on behind his handsome and deceivingly smooth facade. At least that is what poor haunted airman Robert Pattinson suspects.

Pattinson plays Toby Jugg, a WWII RAF lieutenant who has been wounded in action and is now paralyzed. He arrives at this countryside manor (as only exist in Britain) that has been converted to a convalescence hospital for those soldiers dealing will shell shock. It is away from the action, and is very peaceful. If the wounded become healthy, they can perhaps go back to continue fighting, but as it is, the remote location protects them from the chaos. And that is just what Toby needs.

See, Toby is haunted. He is a haunted airman. He writhes in bed, dreaming of a fiery image of the burning interior of a room. As the viewer, it is hard to see what is going on, but it is revealed that he is haunted by the guilt of killing all those civilians as part of his job (really? we could have guessed). He hallucinates, and thinks there are spiders crawling across the floor of the darkened room then all over his body. Is Toby being drugged? Is he losing his mind?

It doesn't help the over-protective Dr. Burns (Sands) won't let Toby wander too far from the grounds, and always seems to be hiding something (um, Toby's letters?). When Toby's delicious young "aunt" (by marriage! so it's OK!) Julia (Rachael Stirling) shows up for the thankless task of "comforting" poor Toby while falling under the spell of Dr. Burns, the movie has long worn out its welcome.

By the bizarre ending of this thankfully short, not-scary, made for British TV thriller, you are left scratching your head, but not really willing to invest any more energy in figuring out what the hell just happened. It's a thriller without thrills, and a psychological horror movie laden with clichés. Yet Robert Pattinson still manages to look like a vampire. All in all, not much to recommend it, unless you are dying to see Pattinson's milky-white pretty face covered in spiders (and I know there is an audience for that).