Stars: Peter Weller, Balthazar Getty, Rebecca Gayheart, Brad Dourif, Frederic Forrest, Corin Nemec, Michael Dorn, Peter Greene

Director: Isaac H. Eaton

Summary: Petrol station clerk, Michael Holloway, is trying to forget his past which was surrounded by alcohol and drugs. He is approached by a novelist who is looking for information on the dark and sinister side of Los Angeles. Soon Michael is drawn back into his old ways...

Balthazar Getty is Michael Halloway, a recovering addict living in Los Angeles. With a loving, pregnant wife at home, Michael spends his nights as a clerk at a gas station, struggling to stay clean. The arrival of Stuart Chappell (Peter Weller), a suave writer doing research in the city's seedy underworld, lures Michael into a seductive world of sinful pleasures and excessive debauchery. SHADOW HOURS is a dark, stylish film that features standout performances by Getty and Weller.

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A semi-pretentious urban sleaze film, Shadow Hoursoffers Balthazar Getty--sporting a "BZAR" knuckle tattoo and a Charlie Sheen look as a recovering drug addict working nights in a Los Angeles filling station to support an angelic pregnant wife (Rebecca Gayheart). Getty is tempted to the wild side by sharp-suited mystery man Peter Weller, who takes him on a tour of nocturnal weirdsville: piercing clubs, bare-knuckle boxing arenas and big-money Russian roulette parlours. Getty comes to suspect that Weller is a perhaps-demonic serial killer who has been turning women's heads (literally) and calls in cop Peter Greene. But he also goes back to dealer Frederic Forrest to get back on drugs and is stuck with get-in-the-way boss Brad Dourif. The film has a good cast and the germ of an interesting idea, but ends up as just another drama about a backsliding rehab guy and nighttime folks. It works hard on being shocking without going all the way into Clive Barker territory, despite advice on extreme underground culture from shock-tactics queen Lydia Lunch and some nasty fishhook facial sculpture. The ending suggests Weller might be a semi-supernatural character, but cops out of dragging Getty all the way down to hell. Weller, who grabs most of the best lines ("I've seen things in this city make Dante's Infernoread like Winnie the Pooh"), is an interesting, ambiguous villain, but everyone else is very standardised. Writer-director Isaac H Eaton clearly has a large collection of David Lynch videos and watched Fight Clubseveral times.

On the DVD: Sound is presented in both 2.0 and 5.1, while the widescreen presentation looks a lot better than the full-frame video release. In addition, there's a trailer and a photo gallery montage of arty looking frame blow-ups scored with pounding weird-rock. --Kim Newman

Aspect Ratio:	4:3 Full Frame
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Animated And Scored Menu Graphics, Trailer, Scene Selection
Year:	2000
Release Date:	April 14, 2003
Runtime:	95 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	P P A 1349
Keywords:	Hours, Shadow, General, Thriller
Genre:	Thriller