[Asylum]
Plot:A group of college freshmen discover that their dorm was once a notorious asylum.

Cast:Sarah Roemer, Cody Kasch, Carolina Garcia, Jake Muxworthy, Travis Van Winkle.

My Thoughts:Simple but works on a few levels.

Review:"Asylum" is another in a long line of horror films where some braintrusts make the mistake of building property on cursed or haunted land. We've seen it before in films involving houses, warehouses, schools, churches, etc. In "Asylum", it's a college dormatory which was built upon a former mental asylum where the deranged doctor Burke commited horrible experiments upon people with mental and emotional trauma. Those who had seen horrible things in their lives, would be cured when the doctor in all of his quote unquote..."wisdom"....would jam two large metallic spikes into their eyes, curing them of horrible sights forever. This as expected didn't sit well with the patients at the asylum, and they soon staged a revolt in which Burke was killed gruesomely.

Now...a group of college students have moved into the dorm at the start of the semester. They are unaware of the bloody history of the land upon which th building was placed. But they soon find out, and once they do.....the evil Dr. Burke returns to "cure" the teens of their past traumas. "Asylum" doesn't do anything new as far as the supernatural horror sub-genre goes, but it does just enough to keep things interesting and to tell a halfly unique story. The picture doesn't waste too much time building upon it's characters at the beginning, only to bring in the supernatural antagonist much later. Instead...the film brings in the antagonist pretty early into things, and builds on the characters as the movie moves along.

Sarah Roemer (The Grudge 2) plays the films female lead, and gives a really good performance in the movie. I really think she is making huge strides in the horror genre, and should find ehrself in a starring role in a big budget horror movie pretty soon. Everyone else gives above average performances as well, but Roemer being the lead is mostly the focal point character wise in the picture. She is also quite the tormented soul in this film, having suffered through the suicide of her father and brother. Despite those tragedies, her character plays out as a strong-willed likeable college girl, instead of a whiny type who is always seeing things and crying, which is the way most characters with a past like hers are portrayed in horror pictures.

It was nice to see a female lead who rose to the occasion when need be, as sopposed to the constantly teary-eyed type. David R. Ellis who directed the film, and Ethan Lawrence who wrote the film, both seemed to pattern their undead doctor villain after Freddy Krueger in some ways, in that he catapults his victims into an illusion/dream-like state before doing away with them in gruesome fashions. Although Freddy is far more creative than Burke, but....Burke doesn't have to wait for his victims to fall asleep...and mostly uses their past traumatic experiences against them as his method of murder. A move which makes for some very interesting death sequences, and an overall creepy way of picking off certain characters.

Another thing to like about "Asylum" is that the backgrounds of the characters, which is mostly exposed prior to their deaths...makes you empathize with them on some level, and the characters themselves are written as typical college kids. Not snobby, annoying, or intolerable. Just normal looking and the types you can watch for 90 minutes without wanting to hurl your remote. The film also makes sure to avoid the typical cliches of one or two characters trying to convince two other characters that something bad is happening. Instead, the film plays out in a certain fashion where the characters are hit with the truth of their situation and have no choice but to accept that their lives are in danger.

A far less annoying way of having events unfold, kudos to writer Lawrence for that. "Asylums" weak spots are rare but they do exist, most of which come in the middle of the film where too much dialogue bogs things down slightly, but not too much...and the dorm master is quite intolerable in most of the scenes in which he's in. But "Asylum" makes up for all of that with a great finale which contains all the necessary elements for a great finish. "Asylum" may not satisfy gorehounds who are looking for blood, guts, and body parts everywhere...but if you're interested in a supernatural horror film that doesn't go by the numbers like most others do, then check this pic out.

Positives:Roemer's performance, mostly likeable supporting cast, unique story and background behind the pics supernatural antagonist, interesting death scenes, and a fantastic ending.

Negatives:The dorm master character was too annoying for words, middle portion of the film suffers from slight over-dialoguing.

Overall:Worth a watch!





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