Leave it to Wes Craven — who introduced slasher Freddy Krueger through the dreams of sleeping kids in "A Nightmare On Elm Street" — to find another new way to stoke our apprehensions of being caught vulnerable and helpless.

In "Red Eye," Craven touches a nerve common to many people: fear of flying. Certainly, he exploits ordinary anxieties about turbulence and engine noises. But "Red Eye" also captures, with shrewdly observed detail, the vague unease that goes with placing one's well-being in the hands of an overwhelmed airline — even before embarking.

Movie review

Showtimes and trailer

"Red Eye" with Rachel McAdams, Cillian Murphy, Brian Cox. Directed by Wes Craven, written by Carl Ellsworth. 85 minutes. Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, and language. Several theaters.

That feeling of powerlessness — a perfect opening, in movie terms, for opportunistic villainy — makes it easy to appreciate the distress of Lisa (Rachel McAdams), a capable, always-in-control assistant manager of a luxury hotel.

We meet Lisa as she dashes to an airport, simultaneously putting out a fire at work via her cellphone. McAdams ("The Notebook") makes her character's industriousness and confidence impressive, likable qualities. It's easy to like her even more when she relaxes her instinct for control to have a flirtatious, preflight drink with the charming Jackson Rippner (Cillian Murphy).

Jackson has a take-charge vibe (he firmly calms a bellicose traveler) offset by a boyish streak, and he seems genuinely delighted when he and Lisa end up seated beside each other on the plane.

Coincidence? Ha. Jackson has engineered their entire meeting to blackmail Lisa into helping him arrange the assassination of a Homeland Security official staying at her hotel. Unless she complies, a killer will do in her father (Brian Cox) back home.

So what happens? In a thriller like "Red Eye," there really is no place to go after such an intriguing setup. Lisa will surely overcome personal obstacles to thwart the villain. The movie is painted into a corner, action-wise. It's just a matter of seeing how "Red Eye" reaches its destination.

The challenge for a wise director such as Craven, working on a contemporary, noir potboiler, is to slip ideas into the margins. While I wish, for instance, there was more to the largely functional relationship between Lisa and Jackson, Lisa manages, now and then, to prod a glimpse of humanity from her nemesis. Meanwhile, he personifies long held demons (briefly alluded to in the script) that she must face for herself.

It's not much, but such things hint at an intimacy between good and evil, forged in dark and secret corners of the heart.

Tom Keogh: tomwkeogh@yahoo.com