The Traveler (2010)

The title of horror thriller “The Traveler” means zip. It isn’t about a tourist, or salesman. Instead former film star Val Kilmer plays a Drifter/Stranger/Nobody/Ghost who walks into the police station of a deserted town one Christmas Eve and confesses to the six officers on duty that he is guilty of six murders. He then proceeds to commit his confessions in acts so supernatural you can hear Dana Carvey whisper “Ssssatan.” The deeds -– whippings, hangings, shovel beatings, and suffocating -- are linked to the torture of a suspect by the same officers a year prior. Director Michael Oblowitz cranks down the mood with camera pans down dark hallways, but this is a “Tales from the Crypt” episode stretched to 90 minutes, with violence repeated and slo-mo’d to the point of tedium, hilarity, and eventually disgust. Kilmer is game, but appears uncomfortably overweight. Dude weighs 250, and people are worried about out-running him? The slapped-on title says it all. Why care when the movie makers don’t. C-