Writer/director Scott Reynolds' feature-film debut tells the story of an enigmatic mass murderer (Paolo Rotondo) who lives in a ghoulish mental hospital that seems populated only by a smattering of thuggish guards, one fellow inmate, and a deeply creepy doctor. Into this minimalist hellhole wanders Rebecca Hobbs, a fame-seeking psychiatrist who wants desperately to learn the method to Rotondo's madness. But is Rotondo genuinely mad? Or is it all an elaborate act? The subject matter with which The Ugly deals isn't exactly novel: Deranged killers of various classifications may be the most over-represented demographic group in cinema history. If direct-to-video films were an accurate and legitimate reflection of society, deviant killers would encompass a significant chunk of the population, their numbers dwarfed only by the swollen ranks of gritty, unorthodox cops, world-weary hookers, and shadowy femmes fatales. But while Reynolds' subject matter may be not be particularly original, his approach to it is. Much of what is interesting about The Ugly comes from the contrast between the film's familiar subject matter and the visually and stylistically audacious manner in which Reynolds addresses it. The Ugly shouldn't work, yet somehow it usually does. The film doesn't have anything new to say about the psychology of madness; after all, the things that drive Rotondo to commit hideous crimes—isolation, a controlling mother, low self-esteem—aren't far removed from the things that drive people to form lame rock bands or write bad poetry. But what The Ugly lacks in psychological insight, it makes up for in visual and stylistic ingenuity, as Reynolds creates a nightmarish, disjointed world that's alternately dreamy, brutal, and hyper-real.