This movie is clearly well directed by its female director but not well enough to counter the terminal obnoxiousness of the lead character. The golden rule about making a movie is that a flawed character needs to have some redeemable or likeable features, to retain our interest. Christial Bale does a sterling performance but who particularly wants to see an unpleasant psycho go through his routines for close to two hours? After a while it seems like the only reason you watch is to see how gross the next murder will be, and that has to be a bad thing to promote.