Bedraggled college professor Michael Faraday has been vexed — and increasingly paranoid — since his wife's accidental death in a botched FBI operation. When a seemingly all-American couple set up house next door, Michael begins to suspect there’s more to them than meets the eye.
Acting
Robbins' chilling normalcy vs. Bridges' unraveling sanity.
Direction
Pellington turns cul-de-sacs into panic rooms.
Writing
Ending so brutal studios tried to change it.
Director
Mark Pellington
Jeff Bridges
Michael Faraday
Tim Robbins
Oliver Lang
Joan Cusack
Cheryl Lang
Hope Davis
Brooke Wolfe
Robert Gossett
FBI Agent Whit Carver
Mason Gamble
Brady Lang
Spencer Treat Clark
Grant Faraday
Stanley Anderson
Dr. Archer Scobee
Lee Stringer
Orderly
Darryl Cox
Troopmaster
Loyd Catlett
Delivery Man
Sid Hillman
Phone Technician
Auden Thornton
Hannah Lang
Mary Ashleigh Green
Daphne Lang
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Studio executives hated the downbeat ending and tested an alternate where Faraday saves the day. It bombed with audiences. The bleak version stayed.
Released before Columbine but after Oklahoma City, it captures a specific post-Waco, pre-9/11 American anxiety about domestic terrorism that feels almost prescient now.
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