A while back I saw and greatly enjoyed the loopy medical themed slasher comedy Dr. Giggles, so with that in mind I was very much looking forward to hitting up an earlier horror from director Manny Coto. Playroom is a very different beast though, a serious minded and strange take on childhood imagination, archaeology and the supernatural. It gets off to a good start with a camera scroll over freaky wall carvings, strange figures and symbols, numerous people in various states of distress, it sets up an arcane atmosphere before entering a more visceral nightmare scenario via a child drawing. This is before we get to the main bulk of the film, which involves a reporter/explorer/archaeologist type (profession never specified) who gets a clue as the the hidden resting chamber of an ancient prince and so sets of with his editor, a camera man and his girlfriend in tow to find the tomb and thusly exorcise his personal demons (tragedy claimed his family when he was younger). Within an ancient monastery, the past comes alive, with deadly consequences…The main thing that sticks out about the is film is the setting. Leading up to the monastery in which the bulk of the film is set we get some great exteriors, but the monastery itself is where things come alive, it's a terrific place. Candles and cobwebs, skeletons and statues, nooks and crannies and strange carvings, shot with unearthly urinary hues for maximum atmosphere. Unfortunately other aspects here aren't up to the quality of the setting. The worst decision is having a bratty child as pivotal character, in regular children's garb he looks nothing more than a generic irritating kid and simply isn't scary, moreover he never gets to anything vicious enough to invest him with effective creep value. Basically he'll make most viewers want give him a good kicking, and not in a good way. The film is also slow, only really getting to the boil at around the hour mark, which leaves it up to the actors to keep things going. As the lead, Christopher McDonald isn't great, a one note performance that's compelling enough but goes from zero to crazy so quickly that he simply isn't too interesting. James Purcell does little of note as the washed up photographer while Lisa Allit is a competently likable but un-dynamic heroine. Fortunately Vincent Schiavelli appears in a side role and relishes it, burning up every moment of screen time he has as a wild eyed headcase. He has far too little screen time though, so can't quite keep the fun going. Director Manny Coto works well enough, but the film is quite dull in the first two thirds and even when things do get moving its never scary and mostly fun for trash geeks. The final half hour does get pretty mental though, moves at a belting pace with a cheerful disregard for sanity, there are a couple of decent tense scenes, a little meanness, some unfortunate cringe making silliness that's just about forgivable and even a few fun gore shots. Things really go out on a high note, but I cant bring myself to rate this one too highly, there are a few too many bad decisions and it disappoints with a great concept. For fans of the more dopey and unusual side of horror trash this one is worth a peek, but I suspect many will find it more frustrating than anything else. Still, I had a good enough time with it, more or less. A contented 5/10.

After having seen the gory and over-the-top silly "Dr. Giggles" hundreds of times and loving it more with every viewing, it's rather difficult to accept that Manny Coto's debut film "Playroom" is such an ambitious and serious-minded psycho thriller. I surely wasn't expecting to see an attempt for intellectual horror, set in Eastern Europe and focusing on topics like archeology and child-psychology, so "Dr. Giggles"-fans beware!! It's not even an admirable attempt, as the screenplay is very uninteresting, tedious and a total bunch of nonsense. An obtrusive reporter convinces his girlfriend-editor to travel to Yugoslavia, more particularly to an ancient abbey where he and his archaeologist-father searched for the tomb of a fella named Ilok. After a couple of days of digging with no results, Chris goes completely nuts, has visions of his former imaginary childhood friend and kills the rest of the expedition crew. Big deal! "Playroom" is boring, mainly because you never care for Chris or his bad case of split personality syndrome. This is only the first time I see Christopher MacDonald in a lead role (he usually plays supportive characters) and he already fails to convince us of his acting capabilities. There's absolutely no tension, although Coto seemly tried hard to create some, and the supportive characters are all insufferable. Well, except for the great Vincent Schiavelli but his role is regretfully brief. There also is an irritating lack of gore and there seemly weren't enough budgets to buy a couple of extra light bulbs, as entire sequences are filmed in the dark. One final piece of advise for young scriptwriters: there's NOTHING even remotely scary about kids' imaginary friends! Especially not if these imaginary friends are ordinary looking kids as well.

I bought this movie on VHS a while back and watched it last night. I was looking forward to seeing this movie, but was kinda disappointed in the end.Here's the story (spoiler?):An archaeologist (Christopher McDonald) has returning nightmares about his childhood when his family was killed. His father was (also played by Christopher McDonald) an archaeologist too and wants to finish his father's work (finding a tomb of an 10- year-old prince who sold his soul to a demon for eternal life) after he finds the map in a book cover. He and his girlfriend and 2 other friends (one alcoholic photographer and an ex-model.....to give the characters some depth......) go to the same place in Serbia were his family was killed to find this tomb. Once there, he get's obsessed with finding the entrance to the tomb and slowly goes insane when his imaginary friend appears again....*******SPOILER*********Turns out he killed his family out of revenge (and being under the influence of his imaginary friend) for being locked up in the "playroom" by his father. In there he makes up an imaginary friend. This imaginary friend turns out to be the prince "who doesn t want to be alone". Together they plot to kill his family and blame it on a worker.There are some huge holes and non-logical things in the story and the story is also very simplistic. The main character goes insane very quickly, the ex-model changes from a Buddist to a nymph, the people in Serbia speak English etc etc.Also I didn't like Christopher McDonald's acting. A lot of over-acting, which didn't work for me.The movie isn't scary at all, nore bloody. But the thing that ruined the movie were the SE of the prince. First we see a young boy, but then we get to see his "real appearance": Some plastic dummy with the voice of that same boy! 2 Things I liked though: The setting off the movie in Serbia. That looked great. Second: I liked the ending.But you have check that for yourself!

Archaeologist finds himself drawn to the site where his parents were murdered. There he and his friends are haunted by the ghost of an evil ten year old prince. Acceptable premise and good settings are just not enough to save this flick. The characters and acting are annoying and the script throws out many questions, but never bothers to answer them all. Rated R.