Can 'Monday' still be a thriller if it lacks suspense?

The psychological thriller “Monday At 11:01 A.M.” comes equipped with clunky, self-aware dialogue delivered in breathlessly ominous tones by off-kilter characters who send out a “There's something not quite right here” vibe.

“I know you're not crazy!” says Jenny (Lauren Shaw) to her boyfriend Michael (Charles Agron) who has sure been acting crazy since the two stopped in a quaint mountainside town to stay the night in a hotel right out of “The Shining.”

“I'm just not myself!” Michael says. “I don't know what's going on!” Neither do we. That's the plan.

Writer, star and producer Agron doesn't waste time tipping us off that Michael and Jenny have just crossed into the Twilight Zone (or, for a more updated reference, the “M. Night Shyamalan Zone”).

Michael hears a woman screaming in Room 327, but nobody else does. When he breaks down the door, nobody's there. Not then.

“Have we been here before?” Michael asks, mainly because the hotel manager seems to know him and a big, iron double door in the back of the hotel restaurant looks vaguely familiar.

“I think it was put there to hide something!” Michael says, his voice pumped with lilting mystery.

The door isn't the only thing emanating familiarity. Independent filmmaker Agron created “Monday At 11:01 A.M.” based on his appreciation of Rod Serling's vintage “Twilight Zone,” Stephen King's stories and Stanley Kubrick's “The Shining.”

Fans of the latter might be amused by Agron's visual references: an ax being dragged across the floor; horror/science-fiction icon Lance Henriksen as the too-knowing drink dispenser modeled after Kubrick's Lloyd the Bartender in the Overlook Hotel.

No doubt the strange brigade of robed figures (with antlers protruding from their heads) carrying a casket into the woods has been inspired by the secret robed society in Kubrick's “Eyes Wide Shut” — without the X-rated sexual action.

“Monday At 11:01 A.M.” can charitably be called a promising student movie, a thriller lacking nuance and suspense, a teasing tale with a long, long fuse and an underwhelming explanatory explosion for its finale.