Following the backlash of Richard Kelly’s sophomore effort — the spectacular disaster that was Southland Tales — one would have thought that the acclaimed Donnie Darko director would play it safe for his next outing. It appeared as though he was doing just that with The Box; a bluntly titled, seemingly straightforward period thriller starring the ever-bankable Cameron Diaz. It doesn’t get much safer than that, right?

Wrong, all wrong. The Box is a logically-impaired, hyperbolic mess that darts from one high-concept idea to another as flowingly, and painfully, as someone with a bladder infection.

Mind you, it doesn’t start that way; the opening act is misleadingly good. Cameron Diaz gets serious as unfortunately named schoolteacher Norma, living in middle-class suburbia with husband Arthur (James Marsden), an engineer at NASA. It’s the mid 70s; a time where fashion was on a holiday and NASA still revered the moon enough not to bomb it. Financially, things could have been better for the happily married couple; Arthur didn’t get the big promotion he was hoping for, Norma needs surgery for her mangled foot and tuition fees for their son are forever on the rise. A glimmer of hope arrives in box-shaped package, left on their porch by a sophisticated stranger named Arlington Steward (Frank Langella, menacing in his politeness), who sports a hideously disfigured face similar to that of Harvey Dent/Two Face in The Dark Knight. Inside the package is a wooden box with a big, red button that, according to Arlington’s proposition to Norma and Arthur, will  grant them $1,000,000  if pressed. The catch? Someone they don’t know will be killed.

It’s actually quite an intriguing and menacing set-up if not simply for the brazen candour of their moral dilemma. The scenario’s certainly absurd, but it’s made somewhat convincing by Kelly’s surprisingly restrained direction and performances that, at least up to this point, feel authentic (Diaz’s laughable southern accent aside).

So when does it all go horribly wrong?

Not long after the button is inevitably pushed, which also happens to be the very moment Kelly takes control of the story.  You see, the first half hour  is primarily an adaptation of Richard Matheson’s short story  ‘Button Button’, which later appeared in an episode of The Twilight Zone. No longer grounded by Matheson’s narrative, Kelly carelessly takes the simple premise to preposterous heights, where it spends the remaining 70-odd minutes in a complete nonsensical free fall. People around Arthur and Norma start getting oddly contagious nose-bleeds and walk around like zombies, seemingly under the influence of some greater power. There’s also these suspended blobs of Stargate liquid. Why exactly? You’ve got me.

But not knowing why isn’t so much the problem as not caring why. While The Box is the type of film that requires multiple viewings to make any real sense of it, Kelly leaves us with little desire to actually do so.  It ultimately comes down to the fact that he hasn’t quite mastered the art of being confusing. Stanley Kubrick (A Clockwork Orange) knows how it’s done, as does Christopher Nolan (Memento), David Fincher (The Game) and David Lynch (Mulholland Drive).Unlike these filmmakers, Kelly gives his audience nothing solid to latch onto in The Box. Not only does the narrative avoid cohesion like the plague  (continuity editing? that’s too cliché for Kelly!), we also lose touch with the once-relatable characters as they are gradually consumed by the melodrama of their deplorably stupid situation. All that’s left to admire is Steven Poster suitably murky cinematography and a haunting string-centric score by Win Butter, Régine Chassagne and Owen Pallett, each members of the brilliant Canadian Indie-rock troupe Arcade Fire.

And as we endure through the onslaught of big ideas and histrionic ramblings, the underlying message of The Box remains unchanged: you can put a price on a person’s morality. That and never trust a man missing half his face. Especially if he’s offering you free money. No good will come of it.

Donnie Darko is looking more and more like a one hit wonder for Kelly.

Follow the author Anders Wotzke on Twitter.