Rob Halford

An entertaining but hideous romp on the circus side of crystal meth addiction, "Spun" wants to be another "Trainspotting" and/or "Requiem for a Dream." Inundated with trip-cam trickery that keeps the audience riding the ups and downs of the main character's drug buzzes, the film is nothing if not stylish, but falls short for lack of depth.

Music video guru and first-time feature director Jonas Akerlund makes liberal use of the disorienting, grainy, washed-out look of bleach-bypass photography. When Ross -- a downward-spiraling college dropout (played by Jason Schwartzman of "Rushmore" fame) on the leading edge of addiction but still clinging to his letter-jacket memories -- takes a hit of speed, the movie's tempo is fed a brief burst of shaky acceleration. A rapid montage of sensory-assault, nervous-tension images dance across the screen, sometimes in the form of cinematic hyper-awareness (e.g., fish-eye lens ultra-close-ups of chapped lips, bloodshot eyes and nervous-ticking fingers), sometimes in the form of animated, soddenly pornographic hallucinations.

The world of "Spun" is an acutely realized day-lit underground of ghetto shacks and combustible meth labs in cheap, airless hotel rooms (greatly enhanced by a hip-trippy score from the Smashing Pumpkin's Billy Corgan) in which all the characters seem acquiescently ensnared.

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