I can't understand the compulsion for some evangelical Christians to produce movies, art, music etc. that mirrors that of the non-Christian world, yet tries to set itself apart in some spiritual or "family-friendly" way. In Thr3e, the first installment from Fox Faith (Fox's Christian-themed film division), we get a movie that wants to be Saw and Se7en, but because of the handcuffs imposed by the studio's "spiritual" bent, not to mention a just plain lousy screenplay, we end up with a movie that is several digits short on the quality/intensity scale of either (no pun intended).
Based on the book by "Christian" novelist Ted Dekker, this limp excuse for a horror thriller wants to be edgy and worldly, but dares not cross into territory charted by mainstream horror movies. As a result terror and tension are pretty much the only casualties of this worthless effort - that and your time as a viewer. Given that the engine that drives a movie of this nature is the level of fear, dread and tension built up by protagonists or innocents finding themselves in very real danger of losing their lives, this movie instead delivers a story about a serial killer in which virtually nobody dies, unless you count a dog and a no-name non-character at the beginning who is on screen for all of 10 seconds.
Buried somewhere in this mess is a purported "message" about the evil that is harbored within all mankind, but you really don't need to sit through 101 minutes of this tripe to walk away with that revelation.
Alan McElroy's screenplay appears to have been practically dunked in a baptismal font of stupidity, leaving leaps of logic that seemingly require the viewer to be imbued with a degree of mental retardation to swallow. For example, if the killer and Samantha were the product of protagonist Kevin Parson's (Marc Blucas) three-way split personality disorder, who was police psychologist Jennifer Peters (Justine Waddell) talking to on the phone, in the car, at the police station (I could go on), and if, as the film explains at the end, she was fully aware that Parson was holding transitory gab-fests with imaginary friends and enemies, why did this "psychologist" allow this loon to run all over town when in reality he should have been placed in a rubber room under observation? Equally, why didn't anybody at Fox Faith catch and patch this monster-truck sized plot flaw before the movie even went into production? The only advice I can impart to the folks at Fox Faith, screenwriter McElroy, and novelist Dekker, is that if you really want to make movies about psychos struggling with conflicts of faith and inner demons, sit down and study and reflect on the Kevin Costner film Mr. Brooks, which is everything this movie wants to be, and isn't.