Serial killer movies is quite difficult to make. Much like horror movies, they are constructed around cliche. The key is character build up and craftmanship. Mindcage is full of cliche and none of craftmanship and character build up.
At times the movie seem to be over the top constructed around the cliches, and at that at beginner level, i.e. The red herrings are too obvious, and theses are crucial to mystery movies.
The movie also lacks fluency, i.e. The scenes are mechanically put together in segments with disturbedly incoherency.
Actorwise the selection is poorly made, especially the supporting roles. The husband of the lead character and the prison psychologist is a joke. Martin Lawrence will never be able to pull of a serious character/movie. Malkovitch tries his best, but delivers his standard unsettling character. Knepper is good as the sheriff and is always watchable.
It is not a terrible movie as such, but could have been done better by working the script more and used other actors. The movie uses some tricks to make it different from other serial killer movies. I cannot reveal them here since it would spoil the movie, but I would have used these tricks more and created fusion of horror/serial killer/mystery movie.
All in all, it is not a terrible movie, I have seen much worse. The movie is just flat. IMDB rates it, to this date, 4,1/10 and that is quite correct.
