Trevor Blackburn(Andras Jones)is an amnesiac told by his psychiatric doctor, brain specialist Dr. Ek(Jeffrey Combs as eccentric as ever)that he was an unhinged, hard-to-handle criminal who was behind the murder of his lover Faith(Beth Bates). Ek sends him to the House of Love, supposedly a mental recuperation center for others with insanity issues. Ek wishes for Trevor to regain his buried memories and place his confounding images into their proper context. What Trevor doesn't know is that Ek has cameras throughout the house, set up to study him. He has also planted actors in the house to pose as mental patients so to increase Trevor's mental collapse. What's sad is that Trevor is really nothing more than a lab animal for Ek's experimentation..tampering with his mind until he snaps. What Ek is really after is a book of magick for which Trevor only knows it's whereabouts. We also get a peek inside the madness within Trevor's mind where we see weird, often homicidal, images. We get visions of a reoccuring dream Travis has of an attic with a trunk. That trunk symbolically represents his mind..inside it is what has been locked away from him. The mystery of that book is really at the heart of this crazy little movie.Call it what you want. Wacky. Quirky. Colorful. Dizzying. Director Jeremy Kasten keeps the viewer on edge so we can experience the same hysteria like Trevor. The film even offers up the idea that Faith's being has came to life within Trevor's mind to get that book using someone in the House of Love as a host to kill him. Supposedly in that magick book is a key to immortality, but Trevor and Faith had to die together. But, you're never quite sure what is going on which is either part of the fun or agony depending on how much the viewer likes being pulled on the tail. Lots of B-actors here like Combs as the doctor, Ted Raimi as a writer who bares witness to Combs' madness and becomes threatened by him, Seth Green as "loony" Douglas who becomes a possible ally to Trevor.The film is really a visual marvel on such a low budget and a credit to imaginative filmmakers who really want to mind-screw you.
... View MoreWhatever your opinion of this movie, there is one universal truth... Insanity. None of the movie is real, there is no magik, no murders, no book, no Faith. This is simply a tumultuous journey through the mind of an insane man. Stop trying to figure it out and look at it exactly as it is. The only constant is insanity obviously fabricated by the mind of a mental patient. At the very end of the movie they show two nurses in what can only be a mental hospital, No Doctor Ek. The nurses are not guessing, but sure that the patient will not wake up, not to say that he cannot wake up, but he is obviously sedated or heavily drugged, which rules out any possibility of a coma as there is no visible life support. There are no scars on his head thus no brain surgery. Think Identity only the personalities do not die when they are killed, all these people are in his head with the exception of the nurses who are indeed real(paranoid schizophrenia), one personality Doctor Eck knows it enough to diagnose it, but the personality called Dr. Ek has an ulterior motive, aka the book of magik, therefore Trevor has no reason to believe that any of the people are not real. Overall this movie was entertaining and well done if you ask me, you can certainly say it has some very good discussion about it, which I am sure was intended.
... View MoreSeth Green took hold of the screen in every scene he was in. Some of his character's lines could have NEVER been pulled off by any one else. Another thing that set this movie off for me was not only Green's character's line but the delivery. He did not just give a line, he punched them to the viewer. His vibrancy and energy flowed magically. I have to say I was happily surprised by this movie. I original rented a) Because it looked to be scary, and I love scary/thriller movies; b)Seth Green.Plus to watch Seth Green try to kiss another man just made my day! Seth really made this movie for me.If you have not seen it do!
... View MoreTrevor (Andras Jones from Nightmare on Elm Street 4 and Sorority babes in the Slimeball Bowl-a-Rama) kills his girlfriend and is sentenced to a stay in the half way house for loons by Dr. Elk (genre staple Jeffrey Combs). But things are not nearly what they seem. I wanted to like this I really did, and to it's merit it did start off rather well, but as it went on it became a casualty of too many twists spoiling the stew. The ending is anti-climatic as well and left me thinking "Is that it???" I read that this is a 'thinking persons' horror film. I'm sorry but that's pretty laughable as anyone with half a brain could follow it. Mindfu@k movies can be good, when they have a point to them (ie. Fight Club, the Twin peaks series) But this isn't one of those.And Seth Green isn't really the best actor in the world to put it diplomatically.My Grade: C- DVD Extras: both widescreen and fullscreen versions; behind the scenes featurette; and Theatrical trailer Eye Candy: Beth Bates shows everything, Shannon Cleary goes full frontal
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