Jesse Metcalfe goes ape-shit in a hunky bare-chested kind of way in a family park, just so he can be incarcerated at the local nut-hatch. It’s all part of a bid to free his asylum-bound sis, who tried to kill herself back in the day after some family tragedy, and whose freedom now obsesses him. At the institution, it’s hard not to be a little concerned given that the dude in charge is Peter Stormare who, on a good day looks exactly like the kind of guy you would want tightly bound in a room without scissors, felt pens or anything remotely pointy.
Stormare, characteristically hammy and amusingly nutso, is a traditional horror movie misguided mad-scientist, conducting diabolical experiments with appalling consequences but justifying his actions with the old “sacrifice a few for the good of millions…” adage. In a facility where the wardens routinely take advantage of provocative schizo female patients and group therapy sessions tend to end with bouts of hand-chewing hysteria, Stormare is experimenting with assorted patients…and in the process turning them into cannibalistic, psychopathic monsters with crystallized eyes. Inevitably, once inside, Metcalfe cant convince anyone that his nuttiness was all an act. Whoops!
The latest in an ongoing line of asylum-set horror flicks – complete with a well cast Armin Shimmerman as one of the creepier patients, a guy with a skin-smelling fetish – this low budget splatter movie makes effective use of its sterile, bright-white backdrop, which proves all the better to splash gobs of gleefully thrown-around gore on. Writer-director Jeff Bohler’s influences are clear (the fast-moving figures of fear at the core of the plot look and act a lot like the Rage victims in the 28 DAYS/WEEKS movies) but his movie makes nicely twisted detours of its own, notably during an unsettling kinky sex scene involving Stormare and a caged, eerily-watching patient jokily named “Mr Loomis”. (It should be noted that ANY sex involving Peter Stormare is going to be unsettling, regardless of context).
After a slow-ish start, the movie builds to excellent, visceral shock scenes : just when you think it might go either way, INSANITARIUM shocks you with a sequence in which an inmate pulls the head off a live cat and passes its headless corpse around for his fellow loons to chow on. The frenetic final 20 minutes see everything erupting into geysers of old-school splatter, with enthusiastic throat slashings, cleaver-to-the-face mayhem and an especially nasty death reserved for Shimmerman. Refreshingly light on CG blood, the movie has ace traditional make up effects instead.
With a fine ear for snappy B movie dialogue (“He’s not dead…just a little less engaged!” / “You’re insane!”) and well judged performances, this is a zesty little straight to DVD gem. There are even cool echoes of the apocalyptic end of Fulci’s ZOMBI for the pleasingly downbeat, anarchic final shot.
– Steven West
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
