The day starts out relatively normal. Colleen makes her way to the grocery store that she works at in the wee hours of the morning, arrives before anyone else, unlocks the door, and walks inside. As she begins the tedious process of preparing the store for customers, she pauses her routine briefly when an image in the corner of her eye catches her attention. There, in the center of the cork board used for scheduling purposes, is a picture of girl, lying on a bloody bed, badly beaten, and staring up at the camera.

Colleen should be shocked at this ghastly sight, but this isn’t the first time that a photo of a mutated young woman has popped up in her vicinity. For some reason, the local serial killer has developed a fixation with Colleen, and chooses her to be the witness of all of his depraved destruction. Colleen tries to report the situation to the police, as she’s done many times before, but they just keep assuring her that things are under control, as they sit back patiently and do nothing.

These events may be unfolding in Minneapolis, but the waves brought on by the murders reach out all the way to Los Angeles, California. There, mixed in with the plethora of palm trees and greedy agents, a pompous photographer by the name of Peter Hemmings grows jealous of the masked killers’ infamous work, and decides to head back to his home town of Spearfish to take his own ghoulish, snuff-like photos with his own go-to models. By mimicking the small-town atmosphere and snapping macabre shots of women made up to look dead and gone, Hemmings is hoping to nab some of the killers’ spotlight, but what he doesn’t know is that his antics haven’t just attracted the eyes of onlookers, but also, of the killer himself.

The last film to ever be produced by legendary horror icon Wes Craven, The Girl in the Photographs has its strong suits. Undoubtedly, this film’s strongest attribute is its gorgeous cinematography, masterfully captured by prolific cinematographer Dean Cundey, who has worked on countless iconic pictures including Jurassic Park, John Carpenter’s Halloween, Escape from New York, Back to the Future, Romancing the Stone, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Apollo 13, and more. Simple moments otherwise overlooked by many filmmakers are given lavish attention to detail, helping to elevate director Nick Simon’s sophomore effort from one of the mere stereotypical slashers that clogs the sub genre, to something resembling a polished work of art. Not only does it separate the movie from others like it, but it also feels like an added bonus and a somewhat necessary trait since the plot revolves around photography.

Another interesting spectacle is the commentary on the parallels between the invasion of privacy through photography, and the invasive physical assaults that victims of predators often face. Both Peter Hemmings and the killer use their cameras as phallic weapons, encroaching on private territory without permission, imprisoning their subjects in a cage of captured time and unwanted attention. Each man in his own way is a villain, and both ruin lives with their insatiable quest for the next woman and the opportunity for stardom. Unfortunately, the execution this innovative concept only scratches the surface, and stops exploring the subject right before it gets truly captivating.

A third of the way through the film, the movie takes a sharp left turn, and switches gears from a psychological thriller to a straight up slasher. This might be acceptable, considering that the all of the girls are hunted down, in a sense, either by a murderer or an egotistical professional photographer, but what really messes up this unique tone is the strained humor. There are many crude jokes throughout the film, and aside from being somewhat offensive, the fact is that they just don’t belong in a movie that’s trying so hard to seriously start an intelligent dialogue about the sinister nature of photo taking.

It’s a difficult plank to walk when straddling the line between exploitative critique and light-hearted comedy, and it proves to be a balance too tough to juggle for up-and-coming director Nick Simon. Working with talents like accomplished comedian Kal Penn can be tricky when trying to decide how much line-o-rama to include in your film, but when you’re already combining the elements of a sleazy slasher and an intellectual conversation, it probably would’ve been better to just leave it out entirely. Overall, The Girl in the Photographs doesn’t work simply because it can’t decide what kind of movie it wants to be, and in its attempt to thread together three different kinds of films, it fails to bring fulfillment to any one category.