Hellborn
Hellborn
R | 26 September 2003 (USA)
Hellborn Trailers

James Bishop is a young psychology resident, excited about his new job at St. Andrews Mental Hospital and the chance to help severely ill patients. The excitement changes to puzzlement, concern and finally terror as some of those patients mysteriously die and James' efforts to find the cause results in increasingly strange behavior from the St. Andrews staff. Things begin to clarify when James finally encounters the Harvester...

Reviews
Foreverisacastironmess

Okay, here goes, I thought Matt Stasi was decent enough in the lead role as the terminally naive young doctor/psychologist guy who really would have been much better off just minding his own damn business! His performance was very weak, but not so awful that I didn't feel for the poor guy a little in the eerie final scene-the only one in the entire film in which he truly emotes! He was a cute one, I like that ratty look! I thought the monster of this picture, the Harvester, was a very cool-looking beast. I liked the effect with the eyes. The design of it wasn't exactly awesome or anything, but to me it still came off as more effective and threatening than some cgi creation in any given SyFy original. The thing didn't get up to that much, but what it did was a pretty terrible fate to be constantly looming throughout. ::: The setting was really good, I always love it in horror movies when the last lonely refuge of the criminally insane is corrupted or twisted in some way. I liked the weird visuals of the place. A lot of the lighting was strangely distorted and gave an almost surreal tone. Although I've seen it done a lot better, I think the setting is the best thing about this film, and is the main element that makes it a worthwhile and enjoyable watch for me. But alas, although the location had lots of potential for great scary atmospherics, they never made all that much use of it. And that's the big problem here, nothing's ever that strong-it's all so tame and slow-paced and it never quite takes off and overcomes its limitations. And the story never goes anywhere except exactly where you'd expect it to. And everyone seems to be saying the same things over and over:this place is evil, bad stuff going' down up in here, get out while you can! And that sameness does get a little grating after not so long. And the only thing that I did find genuinely dumb and that bugged me was when Bruce Payne's effectively villainous character speaks some vague nonsense of how the deaths of the sacrificial victims have to be timed so that they die just as the Harvester stomps up to brand them and claim their souls-which makes no sense at all, seeing as it's clearly the infernal act of the soul-stealing itself that kills them in the first place! And the doctor at the prologue at the beginning and presumably "James" weren't even evil! I just thought that stuff was plain sloppy and should have been left right out. ::: Everything sure looked very slapped together and choppy. The movie was low budget and it showed. But I actually like the film's cheapness, I think it lets you focus better on the its strongest point-a rather effective and subtle foreboding atmosphere of dread. And it does deliver quite well on the suspense. And it never drags and becomes such a total bore as to bore you to tears. It's merely an alright, fine kind of movie, I used to like to chill out to it late at night years ago when they had it on the Horror Channel. Ultimately the flick just isn't good enough, and that's probably a shame because it has its good points. It was entertaining enough and had a good creepy setup, even if they fail to do it justice. It falls flat, mainly because the pieces, while technically fitting together, just don't fit very well. Far indeed from the best, but nor would I say that "Hellborn" belongs with the very worst. Later!

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Finewine58

I've seen some very terrible horror movies in my time, and while this isn't the worst of the bunch, it's certainly in the lower half. The script starts off OK. A young doctor goes to a hospital as an intern, hoping it will vault him to a better job for him and his future wife. Cute huh? The movie then heads straight into the toilet when you realize that something is killing patients. Turns out that there's a demon on the basement that's harvesting people's souls. It's the job of the 1 doctor, 1 nurse, and 1 security guard in the entire hospital staff to drag this mental patient downstairs, do a ritual that pretty much just involves cutting the tongue out, and then allowing the haunted house prop of a demon to come out and steal his soul through the magic of cheesy special effects. At this point the movie gets so ridiculously stupid, I was begging for it to be over. There was still an hour to go. It looked like a half an hour "Tales From the Crypt" episode that somehow got stretched into an hour and a half crap-fest. From Tiny Lister doing his best John Coffey (The Green Mile) impersonation to Tracy Scoggins playing the stereotypical frigid Nurse Ratchet, this movie fails in every possible level. I gave this 2 stars for only TWO reason. 1) His fiancé is pretty hot, she eased the pain a little towards the end and 2) The movie actually looks OK, a lot better than the current trend of horror movies being made with wal-mart quality home cameras.In the end, avoid this turd even if you have the Blockbuster movie pass (which I do, and I still felt cheated). As a bonus drinking game, you and your buddies take a shot every time Matt Stasi (Dr. James Bishop) shakes his head while talking. You'll be drunk 15 minutes into the movie.

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elhombreplatano

This is complete and absolute garbage, a fine example of what a BAD movie is like, this can't be appealing to anyone, not even b-movie fans. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT waste precious time of your life on this piece of trash. Bad acting, bad directing, horrible (but I mean really horrible) script, and complete lack of an idea as to what entertainment (of any form) is. I bought the DVD for 3 dollars, I swear I could almost pay someone to take it. Burning it would not be enough for what this movie did to me. I like b-movies, the killer toys, the weird lagoon monsters, but this is nowhere near. You know those movies that are so bad they are funny? Not even. Just plain old pathetic.

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ghoulieguru

This movie seemed like it was going to be better than it ended up being. The cinematography is good, the acting seemed solid, the dialogue wasn't too stiff... but then about twenty minutes in there's this long scene with a Doctor who you know is actually a patient at the asylum pretending to be a Doctor - and it just goes south from there.On top of that, the demon is about the silliest looking hellspawn since the Godzilla-looking thing in Curse of the Demon. There's also some odd demon worshippers who wear masks that look like the exploding teens from the beginning of Logan's Run.In the end, the cinematography couldn't save this movie. Despite some pretty solid performances by the actors, the story just doesn't go anywhere. I think "Hellbored" would have been a better title for this.

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