When you ask most people what elements are necessary to make a good movie, the answers are pretty predictable. Things like good acting, solid direction, a coherent story, and good special effects will most likely be mentioned. However, something which is incredibly important, but often overlooked is pacing. The director and editor must work together to ensure that the movie flows and that the action is constant. Even in a drama which is dominated by dialogue things have to remain interesting and the plot has to progress. When the pacing is off, the audience starts to get antsy and movies feel like they are dragging along. In the worst case scenario, it feels like nothing is happening at all. Pacing is just one of the problems in The Corridor.

As The Corridor opens, Chris (David Patrick Flemming), Everett (James Gilbert) and Robert (Matthew Amyotte), force their way into their friend Tyler's (Stephen Chambers) to find his mother dead and Tyler in a violent rage. The story then jumps ahead an unknown amount of time. The four men, plus another friend, Jim (Glen Matthews), meet at a cabin in the woods for a reunion. Things are very tense at first, as Tyler has just been released from a mental hospital, and no one is sure how he will behave. As the other men begin to drink and reminisce, Tyler goes into the forest to spread his mother's ashes and finds himself surrounded by walls of shimmering light. The next day, as everyone tries to recover from their partying, Tyler takes the other men to the spot to see if they experience the light or if he was hallucinating. The rest of the group does see the corridor of light and it has an effect on them. At first, they have a sense of euphoria, and they then begin to display signs of being psychic. However, these seemingly positive signs soon turn deadly as the men lose self-control and turn on one another.

As you can tell from the above synopsis, Writer Josh MacDonald had a story in mind for The Corridor and Director Evan Kelly tries to tell it, but things go wrong very quickly. The movie gets off to a promising start, as the opening scene jumps right into the action -- a knife-wielding Tyler mumbling to himself while hiding in a closet is undeniably intriguing. However, things go downhill from there. Again, the amount of time which passes between the opening scene and the outset of the reunion is unclear. We didn't learn anything about the characters in that opening scene, so when we hear details about their lives (family, careers, etc.), we have no idea into what context it belongs. Worse than that, nothing happens for the longest time in The Corridor. The guys get together and drink and talk, but watching this isn't very exciting. Tyler's discovery of the light is too vague to be interesting. The first half of the movie just drags and drags. We hope that something will happen and then we reach the point where we want anything to happen.

And when things do begin happening in the second-half of the movie, they aren't very satisfying. Essentially, the second half of the film plays like Dreamcatcher mixed with special effects from Donnie Darko. The group of men in a snowy location who encounter something unusual and then develop strange new abilities is very much like Stephen King's story, but far less enjoyable. The corridor seems to intensify the men's personalities, so those who are angry become violent and those who are meek become victims. However, the The Corridor has chosen to go the vague route, so we learn basically no specifics of what is happening. I would venture to say that the story is so vague that one would have a hard time even guessing what causes the corridor. (A cell phone tower is nearby, but it's never made prominent.) On the positive side, thankfully the men are never "stranded", as their snowmobiles still work, so we don't have to deal with that hackneyed plot device.

Like so many movies of this ilk, the saddest thing about The Corridor is that it's not 100% awful. There is one scene which provides a genuine jump scare combined with a very clever idea. (The idea doesn't necessarily make sense, but it's clever.) There's also the notion that Tyler's psychotropic medications make him immune to the odd things happening in the woods, which is something that we rarely see in a movie. But, these moments of creativity only point out just how muddled and genuinely boring the rest of the movie truly is. MacDonald and Kelly show some promise, they just need a tighter script next time.

The Corridor features a grown man with what appears to be Charlie Brown's hairdo on DVD courtesy of IFC Films/MPI Media. The film has been letterboxed at 2.35:1 and the transfer is enhanced for 16 x 9 TVs. The image is sharp and clear, showing very little grain and no defects from the source material. Even when taking into account the snowy backdrop, the image is noticeably washed out at times and the colors are muted. The image is never overly dark or bright, but better colors would have certainly helped. Artifacting is kept to a minimum, but the picture does have a flat look to it. The DVD carries a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track which provides clear dialogue and sound effects. The surround sound effects work well at times, most notably when the men enter the light. There is also nice use of surround effects when a character is locked in a room and must guess what is happening outside. The subwoofer effects add presence during the shock scenes.

The Corridor DVD contains only two extras. We begin with an AUDIO COMMENTARY from Producer Mike Masters, Writer Josh MacDonald, and Director Evan Kelly. The only other extra is a TRAILER for the film.