1977, the Summer of Sam. A severely agoraphobic and writer’s-blocked author (Naomi Watts) wages a day-to-day struggle to maintain her fragile hold on sanity in a squalid South Bronx apartment, beset by the oppressive summer heat and impending race riots, all exacerbated by some unknown person sporadically leaning on her very harsh doorbell. Then the lights go out.

This gloomy psycho-thriller gets points for mood and atmosphere, and Watts, who also produced, puts in her usual committed and convincing performance. 

But it blows those points and more for its rotten storytelling, and for the denouement, or lack thereof. After 90 minutes of setting you up for whatever’s out there, it just ends. Leave you saying, “Wait, what? Is that it?”

(99 min)