Not knowing where a film is going isn’t the same as not knowing what a film is attempting to do. Although that may sound like semantics, the difference is immense. The former breeds suspense and surprise; the latter, frustration and resentment.

Mystery Spot brings frustration and resentment. Written, directed, edited and produced by Mel House (Psychic Experiment), the indie pic fails hard by not properly establishing its characters or feeding viewers anything beyond bread crumbs for story. At nearly two hours of wondering when things will truly “start,” the watch is wearisome. While Josh Loucka’s score hooked my ears, other creative elements come up short in a collective overreach.

Shot in Texas, the film is set at a roadside motel in the middle of nowhere. Decades ago, the place was a bona fide travelers’ attraction thanks to the Mystery Spot, an adjacent tourist-trap funhouse. Although long burnt down, its wooden remnants are whispered to be haunted. Running contrary to the title, the movie treats the spot as tangential until need be; of the 111 minutes, most tick at the motel.

In one room, a mopey, bearded slob (Graham Skipper, All the Creatures Were Stirring) auditions young women on camcorder for a supposed movie. In another is a middle-aged photographer (a fine Lisa Wilcox, Alice of A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 and 5) who’s checked in to the dump for a few days. Meanwhile, a cop (Bobby Simpson II) surveils all of the above through binoculars from his completely conspicuous car in the parking lot.

The many questions raised by this slim setup remain unanswered until the conclusion. The effect is like a first date where you can’t ask the other person where they’re from, how they earn an a living or what they do for fun. Also, every now and again, a pile of sand appears. The early ambiguity of Skipper’s situation appears to be calculated misdirection, but is revealed to be either miscasting, off-key acting or poor storytelling once House’s intent — pretentious and metaphysical — finally emerges.

Psych-rock pioneer Roky Erickson once sang, “If you have ghosts, you have everything.” Mystery Spot suggests otherwise. —Rod Lott

After all those Chucky movies, seeing Brad Dourif play a sane, law-abiding citizen seems as rare as a ponytailed priest investigating a serial killer of strippers. Dourif does both in the erotic thriller Final Judgement, from Roger Corman’s Concorde Pictures. (Note the title’s misspelling of “judgment”; perhaps the frugal Corman had a BOGO coupon for the vowel?)

A man of the cloth in the City of Angels, Dourif’s Father Tyrone finds himself Suspect No. 1 when a parishioner’s exotic dancer of a daughter, Paula (Kristin Dattilo, 1990’s Mirror Mirror), is found murdered after he counsels her. The true culprit is Rob (soap star David Ledingham in his lone movie), an artist living alone in one of those enormous warehouses. After convincing strippers to let him paint their portraits, Rob strangles each subject to death with picture-hanging wire — hey, like Corman, he’s resourceful.

When the police lieutenant on the case (Isaac Hayes, Truck Turner) won’t listen to Tyrone’s theory, Father heads to Paula’s club to look for a girl to pound for info. He finds her in Nicole (Concorde queen Maria Ford, Stripped to Kill 2), who at one point wears pants with a floral pattern so gaudy, it looked better as the guest room bedspread at my parents’ house.

Old pro he is, Dourif keeps Final Judgement from becoming less than perfunctory. He’s not helped by his director, Louis Morneau (Werewolf: The Beast Among Us), who lets Ledingham sail so far over the top (while Ford merely discards hers), he should have been reigned in. I doubt the script — written by then-future Hollywood Reporter film critic Kirk Honeycutt — called for such level of hysterics.

As a disciple of Andy Sidaris (read our interview with him in our book), I also wonder why Roberta Vasquez is the only woman on the poster, yet has such a small role. She’s not only a better actress than Ford, but better built for the part. The Lord works in mysterious ways, indeed. —Rod Lott