Director Stuart Gordon, the man who brought us the cult classic "Re-Animator" tells the tale of revenge in this low budget thriller about a young man named Sean Crawley, an out of work struggling man with no clue to his purpose or what he's doing but takes any job he can get. After meeting a man named Duke in one of his jobs, Duke (George Wendt: Cheers) makes him a job offer. The details he gives him are vague and he seems to dance around what the job entails, but desperate, Sean agrees to meet with Duke's boss Ray (Daniel Baldwin) a cocky self-assured rich man who tells Sean he wants a rival of his (Ron Livingston in a walk on role) followed.

Sean agrees to tail his rival and proceeds to do so for a number of days until he's approached by Ray to kill him and eliminate him as competition. Sean, desperate for money, but terrified of committing such an act reluctantly agrees and proceeds to kill his mark quite violently leaving no trace of himself. Sean attempts to get his pay but is gypped by Duke who warns him to leave town but Sean with proof of his work threatens to expose him if he doesn't pay him. He's then driven out to the middle of nowhere, held in a shed, and is tortured for days on end. After days of merciless torture, he manages to escape and now decides to seek vengeance.

I've never seen Re-Animator, yes as a horror fan I should have, but I never got around to it, but I have heard about this film over the net and I grabbed a copy, curious to see what I may stumble upon, and what I got was a pretty good revenge story. Chris McKenna who's in his first starring role is appealing and amusing as the young Sean who we're never really sure of. He seems normal but he always looks like he has a tick or something and the torture he has inflicted upon him is just horrible and inevitably he's pushed over the edge basically going mad. McKenna is a likable actor who brings a sense of humility to Sean and we want to see what happens to him and if he'll make it through. He looks pretty bad ass wielding a sledge hammer and performing his last act of vengeance in the climax. Much like "Taxi Driver's" Travis Bickle, he's a basically everyday man who's pushed over the edge and brings it upon himself to put a stop to it once and for all.

Kari Wuhrer the B movie queen who still looks damn good plays Susan, the wife of Sean's target is a good supporting character providing a source of attempted redemption for Sean who is being torn up inside and out with guilt for ruining her life, and halfway through the film, without knowing who he is, Susan takes him in to her home where Sean seemingly begins living the perfect life with her, until his past shameful exploits come into play and he sees no other recourse than to strike back and erase his sins. The title "King of the Ants" bears some real symbolic resonance as we get to find out what it exactly means during the progression of the story watching Sean learn about his "purpose" as he basically loses his insanity, and all form of conscience.

Daniel Baldwin and George Wendt (Norm!!) are amusing as the resident villains here spawning just purely despicable personalities and homicidal tendencies that will surely get under your skin including Wendt who departs from his usual good guy image and just goes hog wild with his villain role becoming a true prick when torturing or trading words with Sean. Meanwhile there are some pretty interesting gory scenes here including Livingston's rather violent brutal death, Livingston comes to play as a great actor increasing the sheer brutality of his death, Sean's torture in the shed that will perhaps get to people as it did me, and his violent strike back at his tormentors which left a lot to be desired but was nonetheless chaotic in its simplicity. This is a rather disturbing film most of the time with scenery that will just become unbearable at times, but nonetheless it's a nice tale of vengeance with some primo acting.

Sometimes this film was just so stupid I found myself rolling my eyes quite bit. Attempting to be very conceptual and artistic, it's safe to say when watching that Gordon doesn't have a clue how to with some really dumb imagery. There are some exaggerated close-up shots, a lot of dream imagery and the worst, the series of hallucinations Sean experiences in the shed.

Sure, it's a product of his torture with his rapidly decreasing sanity and logic as he's thwacked on the head over and over which make for some really idiotic hallucinations including his nightmares with the character Susan, and one really idiotic sequence where she's shown as a creature eating its own feces. Though it really tries to be intelligent with these sequences its poorly executed and just didn't impress me.

We don't ever really get enough attention paid to Sean's decreasing mental state, only his hallucinations and a little violent behavior, but considering how the story develops with Wuhrer's character, I would have loved to see him become more psychotic which would have helped the movie become more gruesome but it never takes that part which is pretty disappointing. Aside from that we never feel Sean has been taken as a victim, we're never able to sympathize for him because if he's smart enough to set up his enemies, why wasn't he smart enough to detect their betrayal in the first place, so all we have in the end is a snake setting up other snakes.

Most of all the film does take dabbles in soft-corn pornography with very unnecessary sex scenes that drag on way too long, most of it would have served better if left to the viewer's imagination. Otherwise, director Gordon approaches the filmmaking here with a very low tech method with barely any theme music, some pretty choppy editing and camera work and a pretty gritty cinematography job. The story is pretty cool despite an ending that is basically anti-climactic.

We get all the build-up from the middle of the film, we know these guys deserve to be hurt bad, but the scene where Sean finally gets his revenge isn't exciting. If Gordon had taken the routine route, it would have been better suited, but there's a very dumb scene where Sean fills a house up with Carbon Monoxide and throws a cocktail bomb inside, yet it doesn't explode in his face, only when he turns to walk off does it explode, lapses of logic such as this and a pretty dull climax make this really just sub-par material with a pretty cool concept.

Though sometimes really stupid and unnecessarily sexual, it's still a nice low key, gory, and suspenseful revenge yarn with some great acting ala McKenna, Wendt, Wuhrer and Baldwin.