Hotel

With Timecode (2000), Mike Figgis developed a taste for digital cameras and the dramatic potential of the split screen, while a handful of Hollywood stars were equally turned-on by an opportunity to improvise and act on the hoof. Hotel is, in a sense, more of the same: excited filmmakers playing with their medium.

The story needs to be seen to be believed. A self-professed Dogme-style film crew, led by petulant director Trent Stoken (Ifans), is in Venice to shoot a version of Webster's gory Jacobean tragedy 'The Duchess Of Malfi'. The film's producer, Jonathan Danderdine (Schwimmer), wants to direct it himself - so has a hitman shoot Stoken. While Stoken's in a coma, Danderdine takes both the director's chair and his girlfriend (Burrows). Meanwhile, the staff of their hotel are luring guests into the basement, where they kill and eat them.