Completed in 2001 but finally seeing a limited release this Halloween, this earnest little thriller from producer- director John Hancock (BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY) marks a welcome return to the horrific territory he explored more than 30 years ago in the creepy sleeper LET’S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH.

Shot on HD video and based on a novel by director’s wife Dorothy Tristan, SUSPENDED ANIMATION is an involving horror- tinged mystery that draws its strength entirely from compelling characters caught up in a nightmarish - but entirely believable - chain of events, and ultimately proves shocking... by choosing NOT to shock. I’ll explain that later.

While vacationing with his two obnoxious buddies, Tom Kempton, (Alex McArthur), director of several successful animated movies, crashes his snowmobile in the worst possible location: the isolated woodland abode of the Boulette sisters, a pair of goofy but extremely lethal middle-aged cannibals who drug him, strap him into a wheelchair and proceed to torment him with the prospect of an extremely unpleasant demise.

Shortly after being subjected to a cabinet full of severed body parts (including the inevitable pickled pecker), but slightly before having his pinky chopped off, Tom attempts to save his own skin (not to mention the rest of his organs) by marshaling the only resource at his disposal - his artistic skill - and tries to convince gangly, washed-up ballerina Vanessa (Laura Esterman) that she’d be the perfect model for a sorceress character in his next film. His plan to turn her against her dumpy sister Ann (Sage Allen) backfires, however, and it is only the last- second arrival of his pals that saves Tom from the sisters’ soup-pot.

Months later, Tom is still tormented by memories of his ordeal, despite assurances by police that both sisters were killed. In an effort to purge himself of recurring nightmares, he channels his fears into his work: he begins research into the Boulette family tree, with the intention of making good on his promise to incorporate Vanessa’s image into his next film.

A bit of amateur sleuthing leads him to another Boulette sibling, crusty convict Phillip (J.E. Freeman), whom Tom pays five grand to reveal the identity of Vanessa’s daughter Clara (Maria Cina). Abandoned by her mother at age seven and raised unaware of her psychotic lineage, Clara is an aspiring actress currently working as a bartender in L.A. Tom finds no evidence of the Boulette family curse in the lovely, sensitive Clara... but finds plenty in her son Sandor (Fred Meyers), a pimply, sunken-eyed teen who beats his mother and dismembers small animals.

Tom’s obsession with his almost-murderers slowly mutates into a growing affection for Clara, born not only out of sympathy for her plight, but also from a desire to free her from her family’s curse, which he realizes has been reborn in her monstrous offspring. His feelings for her create more than just unrest in his marriage to the remarkably understanding Hilary (Rebecca Harrell); his obsession ultimately draws him back into the same lethal spiral of mayhem that nearly claimed his life months earlier.

There’s nothing creatively remarkable about Hancock’s straightforward direction, but this is more of an actors’ movie, propelled by characters both believably written and well-performed. The handsome, intense McArthur (whose last foray into horrific cinema was as the psycho in William Friedkin’s love song to capital punishment, RAMPAGE) anchors the film nicely with a believable performance; it’s easy to identify with his dark obsession. Cina conveys sensitivity as the tortured Clara, whose emotional pain comes across without descending into histrionics. On the psycho side, the sisters are a hoot: as Ann, Allen does a dead-on Kathy Bates from MISERY (by way of the CHAINSAW family), and Esterman (who looks like SCTV’s Andrea Martin) chews up the scenery as the melancholy maniac Vanessa. Even young Meyers provokes a shudder and a giggle as the perpetually leering Sandor - a stick-thin turbo-geek with the strength of ten men... well, ten geeks, anyway.

Performances aside, what struck me as most impressive about this project was the fact that it chooses not to continue down the deranged path of its first half-hour, which I’d feared was turning into the umpteenth version of the “Psycho Rednecks Abduct City Folk, Eat Some Of Them, and Receive Bloody Comeuppance at the Hands of Few Remaining Survivors” genre, currently oh-so-in-vogue this year. Not that I’m tired of the “PRACFESOTRBCHFRS” genre... far from it, really. But the fact that ANIMATION chooses to fall back, distance itself from the horror, then proceed to examine the characters involved in a sensitive and realistic way, that totally caught me off-guard. I mean, where’s the “shocking” twist ending? Isn’t that character a red herring? Wait, is that killer really dead? Is it all a fabrication of the protagonist’s mind, or maybe just an elaborate ruse concocted to lure him into... you know, the usual crap that Hollywood writers use to convince you (and themselves) how fucking clever they are. None of that nonsense here. Even the score by Angelo Badalamanti, while decent, doesn’t show off the composer’s usual musical quirks. You know, sometimes when you want a really good steak, you don’t want a bunch of roast garlic mango glaze with a mint leaf and twist of truffle on top. Just give me the goddamn steak. You know what I’m saying?

So at the risk of decimating the metaphor: if you like your cinematic meat well-done, not too bloody, and pretty darn satisfying, check this one out.