Loaded is one of those unfortunate movies that starts out engagingly but then proceeds to twist and turn down a slippery vortex of yawning mediocrity. You don't want it to go sliding down that hole—in fact, you hang on with it for an extended period, hoping it can gather enough strength to save itself—but no, there it goes...gone.

The first scene holds promise. Young, British independent filmmaker Lance (Danny Cunningham) is talking through his horror-flick screenplay with a stable of young actors/friends. It's a scene that grabs your attention, introducing both the cast of Loaded and the cast of the film-within-this-film. You also understand soon enough that this horror flick is going to boast gratuitous nudity and violence, and as the attractive young ladies glance at each other and shrug, you think, Mmm-kay, I'm into this.

But then things start to go sour. Turns out, that promising first scene is at odds with the rest of the film. Yes, the group travels to some remote English location (imagine the UK equivalent of the opening to The Evil Dead) and starts setting up for the movie shoot. Yes, they start shooting their horror film, and yes, there's some minor gratuitous nudity thrown in there for good measure. But, sadly, the film—which wants to be an edgy psychological horror thriller—turns into a talky, meandering, 20-something British Big Chill, in which pretentiously drawn young people smoke and pose and yak incessantly. Troubled Neil (Oliver Milburn) pines for the virgin Rose (Catherine McCormick), but Rose is hesitant, with seemingly one lustful eye on Lionel (Mathew Eggleton), an underdeveloped character who comes to a pointless fate. There are other characters involved, but by film's end, they're interchangeable whiners.

Directed by Anna Campion, Loaded seems cleft in its center: The film starts out with its mind on movies, and it makes an adequate attempt at doing the whole movie-within-a-movie thing. The scenes of filmmaking are fun, because it's plain these earnest people are making a huge, steaming pile of schlock, despite increasingly lofty aims. But then, Loaded goes for something else entirely, abandoning its intentions, loading up its characters with acid (hence the title), and making a final-reel stab at tragedy. But it's all too late. By then, you've had enough of annoying Gen-Xers babbling about fate and film. You'll almost be thankful for the amazingly abrupt ending that resolves nothing.

Buena Vista presents Loaded in an anamorphic-widescreen transfer of the film's original 1.85:1 theatrical presentation. Image quality is above average, but not great. Close-up detail is fine, but once characters move a few feet from camera, they start blurring out into softness. Background detail is woeful. I noticed a fair amount of dirt and specks. I had no problem with the color palette, though.

The DVD offers only a Dolby Digital 2.0 track. This is a dialog-driven film that presents voices clearly, if a bit distorted and tinny at the high end. The music seems lacking in fidelity.

You get the theatrical trailer for Loaded, Holy Smoke, With A Friend Like Harry, Backflash, and Office Killer.

Loaded is a frustrating film that's all the more annoying because of its dashed potential. Leave it on the shelf and pick up Shallow Grave instead.