Cell, The (2000) - Synopsis

Cell, The (2000)

The Cell takes a shocking, riveting mindtrip into the dark and dangerous corridors of a serial killer's psyche - a psyche that holds the key to saving the killer's final, trapped victim who remains alive. A sharp new twist on the science-fiction thriller, The Cell crashes the gates of a madman's inner sanctum with an eye-popping imagination.

Making this unprecedented journey into the recesses of a killer's nightmarish fantasy world is Catherine Deane (JENNIFER LOPEZ), a psychologist who has been experimenting with a radical new therapy. Through a new transcendental science, Catherine can literally experience what is happening in another person's unconscious mind, including their dreams and private musings. Up until now, Catherine has only used this potentially sanity-shattering method on a comatose child, hoping to bring him back to the world and to his grieving parents.

But when ingenious serial killer Carl Stargher (VINCENT D'ONOFRIO) falls into a similar type of coma - while his final victim sits alive in a hidden, booby-trapped cell -FBI Agent Peter Novak (VINCE VAUGHN) turns to Catherine as his last hope, asking her to do the unthinkable. Novak convinces Catherine to use her chemically and electrically induced therapy to enter Stargher's demented synapses and to hunt down the location of his infamous and deadly lair.

Catherine boldly agrees to go where no person has gone before - deep into the shifting shadows and bizarre secrets of a killer's mind. But this mind is different from anything she has ever experienced before - so evil, so strong and so filled with monstrous images and thoughts that Catherine may not be able to escape with her sanity intact. Inside Stargher's macabre, mystifying world, Catherine learns what it is to be a predator, even as she becomes his virtual prey.

New Line Cinema presents The Cell, the feature film directorial debut of acclaimed commercial and music video visual innovator Tarsem. The film is produced by Julio Caro and Eric McLeod from a screenplay by Mark Protosevich. Co-producers are Mark Protosevich and Stephen J. Ross with Nico Soultanakis serving as associate producer.