I went into this thinking it would be a dumb, low budget horror movie. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. The camerawork and visuals were excellent, along with the acting. Great performances all around, especially the lead. The story I had problems with, especially the ending. It was pretty ambiguous and practically no explanation was given for the majority of the events in the film. Why did the patients go crazy? Just because their mental patients? Was all of this really in George's head? What was the significance of the blue pills? I would have preferred if the ending could have explained what happened that made the patients go crazy, instead of leaving things to interpretation. In the end it was a fun watch, but nothing remarkable.

What happens when the lunatics take over the asylum? Well, you get one suck ass movie. In 1989, in Washington, the friends George, Max and Ricky are aspirant musicians that play in a band in their leisure time. They work as cooks in the Sans Asylum to earn money to pay their bills, including renting a studio to record their songs. The asylum is located in an isolated area and is monitored by a team led by the security guard J.B. The deranged inmates are criminals and they take pills to stay calm. One day, George has a concert during the night but J.B. asks him to arrive early in the morning to receive the supplies for the kitchen. George leaves his girlfriend Lynn without sleeping and heads to the asylum. While he is preparing the meals for the insane inmates with his colleagues, there is a storm and a power outage in the area and the monitoring system fails. With the mental hospital in the darkness, the inmates led by the cruel Harry Green attack the guards and staff. George and the other kitchen workers hide from the horde of violent madmen. Will they survive? (Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) Despite the creepy atmosphere and some creepy visuals, Asylum Blackout fails due to a lackluster plot, dog poo dialogue, and terrible acting. If you want something similar to this go out and play Batman: Arkham Asylum. Not only cause it's Batman, but also because it kicks ass and it does this type of story really well, where as this film does not.

I had very little expectations for this film. I have seen a ton of low budget horror the last little while and most of it is just awful. The concept for this film is intriguing and with a big budget could be really interested. Imagine if the Saw guys got a hold of this sort of concept? So I was pleasantly surprised (and disturbed) that this actually turned out to be a solid horror flick. They attempt to introduce a few of the characters and then the storm makes all the rest come crashing down. The single only issue with the film I thought was that the character development was weak in a lot of ways. I think they could have done this so much better had we seen a specific and well developed group of the inmates that we feared and understood. In this case, the inmates are all faceless and insane so we don't get one or two clear villains. We also really only get one hero that we get to know. Still the violence is brutal and will certainly make you cringe. The dark and gritty setting of the Asylum is well done especially given the low budget they were dealing with. I was thoroughly impressed with how we see the deterioration of the mental states of the victims as they try to deal with this situation they are in.Rupert Evans is our main protagonist. He does a great job with only a little character development. They sort of force the concept that he has a beautiful woman at home that loves him and he seems like he's sort of at an impasse with his career. You get to know him just enough to really care about him and understand the horror he is going through. I wish I could specifically talk about the rest of the cast because there are some very good and disturbing performances but none of them really stand out. They don't get any character depth at all and are simply there to serve one or two purposes which they do and they do well but you won't ever remember any of their specific characters. I thought they were going to really go somewhere with the character played by Kenny Doughty but the depth is just not there although he gives a great performance in a small supporting way.If you can get past the lack of characters you'll really enjoy the rest of the movie for its story and gore and horror genre elements. Especially towards the end of the film you'll really see some really twisted kills and torture scenes but without being completely gratuitous. As with many indie films, especially horror ones, the director is a newcomer to the scene. Still I give Alexandre Courtes kudos because he knows the genre well and uses scenes to really get under your skin. The concept of how the film plays with your mind and really shows you the mental instability of Evan's character will appeal to those that like a really twisted story. I'm still not sure I entirely understand the ending of the film and yet I didn't hate the ending either. For a low budget horror film this was worth seeing and while it isn't perfect, it fills the quota well. 7/10

Found the movie on netflix so we decided to watch it. I had never heard of the film or any of the actors in it and the title gave me the assumption this film would be pretty bad. But i was delightfully mistaken.it's Not great but for a low budget horror film its pretty darn good. it took a little long getting in but after that it had great pace and intensity. It had some very shocking and gory scenes but never really crossed the line. some parts of the film don't make the most sense and leave you questioning what happened. but all in all the setting and the disturbed inmates made for a truly scary film. very good for what it was and better than a lot of big budget films out there. i would give it a view******/10