Somewhat of a director-for-hire for New Line Cinema, David R. Ellis has brought us a number of unremarkable popcorn munchers over the last decade, ranging from the awesome (Final Destination 2) to the mediocre (Celluar) to the outright abysmal (The Final Destination). He’s also the man responsible for exploiting Samuel L. Jackson’s black gangster screen image in the fun if insanely overrated 80’s actioneer throwback Snakes on a Plane, making him one of Hollywood’s trash cinema go-to guys. However, the sun tanned Californian has now finally tried his hand at full-blooded horror with the direct-to-DVD shocker Asylum - an unfortunate title, really, for it makes you wish you were committed to one after having watched it.
This clunky claptrap tells the story of six mismatched college students who foolishly band together to investigate the supposedly haunted history of their university campus – the location of which was formally a metal institution governed by Dr. Burke (Mark Rolston in an embarrassing performance); a psychotic physician who had a penchant for lobotomizing his teenage patients, only to later be murdered by them in a brutal revolt against the establishment and its practices. If the warning signs weren’t already clear enough, the dim-witted 20-somethings then take it upon themselves to venture into the belly of the beast to dig up old records, patient profiles and disturb the final resting place of The Doctor…you can probably guess what happens next.
Perhaps the biggest problem here is Asylum’s complete and utter derivativeness and lack of original ideas. When you think about it, the central plot (from concept to execution) is a direct rip-off of A Nightmare on Elm Street, particularly Dream Warriors. The driving force behind the films’ presentation of horror is rooted in dream logic and the idea of The Doctor as a hallucinatory bogeyman, terrifying his victims by forcing them to confront their innermost secrets and insecurities. It even gets to the point where his behaviour mirrors that of Freddy's, albeit a terribly inferior replication. The puns, the gestures - even the indulgent laughter of a sadistic madman taking pleasure in the kill all contribute to the familiarity of a movie that desperately wants to pay tribute to it’s influences, regardless of the outcome.
Another frustrating element with regard to the temperament of the movie (and many contemporary horror films for that matter) is its insistence of reminding the audience precisely when they have to be scared. Granted, the screenplay might not be the most ingeniously crafted piece of prose but Ellis seems to tailor the material as if it were intended for the lowest common denominator. The fast edits, overactive soundtrack, and irritatingly hammy performances on behalf of the films’ villain all serve to underestimate the audience in their ability to be receptive to subtle scares, making you wish the film would take itself seriously for at least one scene so that you can preserve some kind of dignity as a fan of the genre.
Despite the onslaught of heavy-handedness, the film admittedly does have its moments. A number of the kills are rather striking (Maya’s grisly scalping at the hands of Burke’s steel skewers being the best of the bunch), conjuring up a certain old-school nastiness and there are some finely timed performances among the young cast during the films’ quieter moments but these upsides are few and far between. For all its flaws, Asylum could have been an enjoyable 90 minutes if it at least made a more conscious effort to divert attention away from the proverbial stereotypes. Regretably, this is one patient that may never recover from the operation.
Dir: David R. Ellis
Writer: Ethan Lawrence
Cast: Sarah Roemer, Jake Muxworthy, Carolina Garcia, Mark Rolston
Run Time: 93mins
Country: USA
Rating: R18+
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