Trivia: The scene directly before the first victim, "the movie star", is killed she is talking to herself in the mirror. You can see her reflection and the reflection of the window behind her. If you pay close attention you can see that there is a silhouette in the curtains. Eventually the lightning flashes and you can see the face of the little boy in the silhouette looking into the window at her.
Trivia: The movie Ginny was talking about (10 people going to an island and being killed one by one) is "And Then There Were None/Ten Little Indians" (title depends on region). This seems to be the basis of the story (10 people/victims going to a motel and are killed one by one.)
Trivia: Pruitt Taylor Vince who plays a killer with multiple personalities in this movie had a similar role in an episode of the X-files in which he played a killer with a slight personality problem.
Trivia: This movie is loosely based upon the novel "And Then There Were None," where ten strangers are trapped together in a mansion and killed systematically. Although most of the storyline for this movie is original, there are some similarities in symbolism. For example, for every death in the book, an Indian figurine disappears. In this movie, for every death a numbered key is found. In the book, one of the characters recklessly cuts off another in his car on the way to the mansion. In the movie, a reckless driver is indirectly responsible for another's car trouble. John Cusack's death in this movie is slightly similar to that of Phillip Lombard in the book.
Answer: The actual, "real-life" killings happened before the events shown in the movie and are shown briefly in a flashback. The authorities knew that Malcolm had done it while believing to be one of his alternate personalities, but did not know which one, and had to be convinced that the killer personality was dead before changing his sentence to life imprisonment. Meanwhile, the killings we see in the motel during the movie, are Malcolm killing off his other personas, leaving in fact only - the killer.
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