Hospitals and asylums always have been great settings for horror-flicks. You can very rarely go wrong with it, though it's simply true as well that once you have seen one of those movies you'll find all of the other ones to be just alike.And as far as the genre goes; this one really doesn't stand out. As a matter of fact, it's a pretty failed attempt, mostly. The fact that Lance Henriksen is being an high billed actor on this movie should already tell you enough. I love that guy but the movies he does normally aren't of the highest caliber and just don't have the highest budget or most talented people involved with them.Reason why this movie just didn't work for me was because it failed at to create a decent atmosphere, of paranoia, claustrophobia and just overall madness. Instead the movie was more focusing on being a slick looking, typical, modern horror-flick, with lots of flashing images and quick cuts and some very clichéd characters.Because the atmosphere is lacking, so is the tension of the movie already. But it gets made even worse by the movie its total lack of imagination and creativity, when it comes down to its horror moments. It's one of those movies that rely heavily on false scares and it aren't even well done false scare either.But another obvious cause of all the movie is problems is simply the story. I'm sorry, I just couldn't care about anything happening in it. There is a mystery but you literally have no idea what it is all about, until half way through the movie, or so, but even then you are still trying to figure out which direction the movie is heading toward. The one moment its heading toward a more supernatural story, while at others its more a straight-forward, horror-slasher. It sounds like a good thing that the movie its mystery and story are so unpredictable but in truth the reason why its being so unpredictable is because it's a quite big mess and the story is very often just all over the place. It will make you loose interest pretty fast and just don't care to find out what this big 'mystery' is. It also just doesn't seem like anything life threatening or something that could solve some problems or help people out. It's a mystery that seems and feels totally irrelevant and it's not really an interesting subject for a movie, which I admit is also largely due to the messy way the whole story and movie presents itself.Also the 'twist' just didn't do it for me. I know every genre movie tries to be original, by often adding a twist ending but when it isn't in style and tone with the rest of the movie and it really doesn't connect too well with the rest of the story that got set up previously, your twist just doesn't work out too well and it feels more like a cheap way to surprise your audience.There are still far more worse movies to watch out there and the movie didn't annoyed me too much, despite of all its mess and ineffective approach. But it's obviously hardly a movie that I would recommend to anyone.5/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Clark(Joshua Leonard)is a meek student intern looking to earn a credit so that he can finish his degree taking an employee position at a poorly ran mental institution, overrun by the stern and irritable Dr. Franks(Lance Henriksen). When Clark poses the idea of making conditions better at the institution, immediately Franks shows aggravation and resistance towards him. When mysterious brutal murders begin to occur to the staff of the institute, Clark joins forces with a co-worker Sara(cutie, Jordan Ladd), who herself has secrets regarding her own bouts with slight schizophrenia, to uncover what exactly is going on. Who is committing the murders and is the good Doctor Franks hiding something. Clark confides in a "patient" in a cell block on the bottom floor, a darkened hall of prisons for lunatics and psychos, named Ben who seems to know about specific details regarding the murders and history of the institution. Also, Clark sees the ghostly apparition of a little boy. How does Ben know about details being that he's locked away in a cell and who is this little boy? And, who exactly is the murderer doing in hospital staff members and a certain mental patient who seems healthy enough to leave the facility? I thought for the first hour, this was quite a nifty little asylum terror tale, but the twist conclusion, as the reveal of the killer is established, really opens up Pandora's box where the logistics of everything we've seen and the possibilities of how an identity of someone could be taken so easily. I'm not sure the twist can hold strong on close scrutiny. The opening sure belts you for a loop..we get an explosion of bizarre, grotesque images of creepy characters within the mind of a child patient who escapes out the third story window of an asylum who is hit by a car intentionally. It certainly sets up the story in an unusual way. I'm drawn to horror films set in asylums because crazies make for interesting subjects..that's what the genre's all about. Natasha Lyonne is wasted as a patient named Alice who sees a boy yet no one believes her. Dendrie Taylor is Nurse Hendricks, who appears as about as loony as the ones under her watch. Leslie Jordan is the eccentric Dr. Morgan who informs Clark of the place's unusual history regarding the escape of the boy and how buildings such as the specific institute they reside has secrets which continue to live on through the place. Leonard ably fulfills the role of Clark, a young man trying to set things right in his pursuit of the killer. He's geeky, yet attractive. He's a bit naive, yet doggedly determined enough to continue his search for the truth. Jordan Ladd sets up Sara as someone with troubles, who has finally found a possible soulmate in Clark. There's an air of mystery about her and the film goes with that offering up a possibility that she might be the one responsible for the slayings. But, the film gives you clues within the story to guess who is committing the ghoulish murders taking place. Those who have watched enough of these kind of twisty movies will probably guess who the killer is. I'm not sure I completely bought into the twist, but I found the flick entertaining enough. I might've actually have enjoyed this more if it had followed the possible supernatural path, concerning a possible haunting to the institution, instead of the psychological direction it eventually takes. Henriksen fans might be disappointed in his rather underwritten role..he's merely here to provide a possible figure of higher authority with secrets to hide, who might just know the answer to what's going on under his watch.

The reason why this movie got into my hands was simply me having to buy for a certain amount of money to get my hands on another movie. New horror has continued to disappoint me, so, naturally, I thought this one would as well. I have to say that I was wrong.Clark Stevens is the name of our hero, doing his practice at at Cunningham Hill, a mental hospital which seems more like a place to keep the insane instead of helping them. This is, at least, what Clark thinks and he's more than eager to change things. A murder, a mysterious boy and an equally mysterious patient later, making changes in hospital policy becomes a secondary problem. You probably get the idea, this is a classic plot, classic character and all the classic twists and turns. And no, it doesn't make this film worse, it makes it better. Because for some reason, I get an old-school vibe watching this history unfold. There are scares. There is some blood. And there's actually some frightening scenes (especially a dream-sequence). In these Saw-horror days, it's really refreshing to see a movie that doesn't try to be something it's not. This movie doesn't try to outsmart you. You can probably figure out the end pretty quickly, but that doesn't keep you from wanting to see what happens. In other words; this is a good, plain horror movie. Well worth the 3, or so, dollars I spent buying it.

Last night my friends and I decided to rent a DVD and we found this one interesting. First of all, the setting is by no means original. It is a classic mental health facility presumably situated in the countryside where people are locked up: people whose mere existence the society tries to forget about. Clark Stevens, a soon-graduating student of psychiatry, arrives at Cunningham Hall to finish his practical training, but soon discovers that there is something strange about this peculiar mental health facility.The plot is not the most original one there is, yet the producers wound up with an OK result. Once the story begins to unfold I pretty much lost interest in the film though, as though the film did not manage to keep the tension throughout the last part of the film. The film is worth seeing if you have nothing better to do a Sunday evening, but do not expect too much entertainment. 5/10