DIRECTOR James Cox chronicles one of the seedier and more lurid episodes in recent Hollywood history in this dramatisation of the so-called Wonderland Murders.

When police arrive at 8763 Wonderland Avenue in the Hollywood Hills, they discover a bloodbath: four drug dealers have been viciously slaughtered, their lifeless bodies strewn about the house.

Eventually, the cops link fallen porn star John C Holmes (Val Kilmer) to the crime but he spins them a barely credible version of events.

One of the survivors of the massacre, David Lind (Dylan McDermott), offers radically different testimony, which condemns Holmes.

Unfortunately, neither Holmes nor Lind are credible witnesses, so which of them is lying?

In a series of Rashomon-like contradictory flashbacks, we see Holmes befriend drug dealers Ron (Josh Lucas) and Susan Launius (Christina Applegate) and their business partner, Lind.

Holmes is clearly out of his depth in this life or death world; high on coke and hungry for more, he becomes involved in a hare-brained scheme to rob the home of notorious gangster Eddie Nash (Eric Bogosian).

Soon after, the Wonderland murders take place.

Did Holmes set up his so-called friends to save himself from the legendary wrath of Nash, or is he an innocent victim in a bloodthirsty gang war?

And what role, if any, did Holmes' teenage girlfriend Dawn (Lisa Kudrow) and despairing wife Sharon (Kate Bosworth) actively play in the unfolding drama?

Cox shoots the film on handheld cameras to stay close to his characters, investing the visuals with a murky, grimy quality in keeping with the sordidness of the film's milieu.

Kilmer musters sympathy for his selfish and insensitive drug fiend, which explains why the two women in his life seem so determined to prevent him staggering into the abyss.

So little of Holmes' colourful past is referenced directly in the film - he died in 1988 from an Aids-related illness having had sex with over 14,000 women in more than 2,000 hardcore movies - that Kilmer may as well be reprising Jim Morrison from The Doors.

Bosworth is little more than eye candy but Kudrow excels in her few scenes; the years of worry are etched deeply on her character's face.

The overlapping narrative, with its intricate flashback structure, ties itself in knots and quickly becomes repetitive, posing far more questions than it answers.

See it at UCI (Sun, Tues only)