In this taut thriller where everything is not as it appears, 10 people are stranded in a seedy Nevada motel and have no means of interaction with the outside world. There’s a raging storm holding them in check; the roads are washed out, the telephone lines are down, and their cell phones can’t muster a signal. One of the lot is a convicted murderer (Jake Busey) in the custody of a thuggish cop (Ray Liota), there’s a hooker with a heart of gold (Amanda Peet), and the voice of reason is a chauffeur with a tortured past (John Cusack). Things go bump in the night, and as bodies begin to pile up, so do the plot twists.

Director James Mangold (Heavy and Copland) masters the psycho-horror mood with an effusive hand, and just when the film seems to list toward the predictable, it jolts pleasantly into the unexpected. Yet somehow the whole exercise is void of suspense. Perhaps it’s the overabundance of baroque personas crowding the screen — only Cusack’s character and Pruitt Taylor Vince as a mental patient have any depth. Or maybe it’s just that the race from 10 to one, with the identity of the killer obfuscated at every turn, has been done ad nauseam. Whatever, the result here is invigorating, if thrill-less. (87 minutes)