Oppenheim, a talented documentarian (Some Kind of Heaven, Ren Faire), basing the film on Luke Dittrich’s seminal Esquire article, “Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die,” takes a kind of interpretive tack with Hansen. As portrayed by the ever-twisty Pattinson, the line between his performative self (thrusting out from behind a literal curtain with the professionally grave, self-important sweep of a high-school principal, or maybe a mortician) and his actual self with his wife and kids, gets smudged into a dark smear, leading him deeper into psychosis. At one point, when one of Hansen’s perp-jump scares goes wrong, he lies down in a fetal position and sinks into a fugue state, unable to be reached by the increasingly agitated Andie.

This film, now the second reboot of a series that has seven previous installments, isn’t terribly interested in pity, conscience, or redemption. In fact, despite the trappings of a more conventional horror caper  — including a protagonist who has just learned he’s going to be a father  — Cregger’s creation has no intention of going soft on us, all the way through the pitiless ending.

Many will compare this film to 2000’s Gladiator, and it’s an apt comparison, for better and worse.

It’s completely ridiculous that any drug dealer worth his weight in cocaine would trust some new guy like John, but if you accept this premise, the rest of the film succeeds.