Insanitarium (2008)

I don't know what to say. I still have goosebumps and that blissful, happy smile on my face with the wide eyes with a lot of white in them. That is my "OHMYGODIJUSTWATCHEDTHEPERFECTHORRORMOVIE!!!!" - expression, in case you are wondering. Combined with frantic giggling and a very fast-paced way of speaking (as I just realised during a short phone call).

The Hills Have Eyes and Dawn of the Dead both got excellent scores in my reviews. I am sorry to say that I have to edit them now. Insanitarium is WAY better.

I am officially in love with this movie.

*takes a deep breath*

Ok, I'm a bit calmer now. On with our regularly scheduled movie review.

"If you're reading this letter, it's because I have been committed to an insane asylum."
- Now that's what I call a promising start. Also, we get treated to beautiful shots of all sorts of various medical equipment. As I am desperately in love with medical equipment of various kinds, this is almost pornographic for me. And beautifully shot, I might add (again).

Generally, the camerawork in Insanitarium is very good. I watched it again with a friend today (after my initial viewing for the sake of this review, which resulted in me ranting about how great this movie is on the phone), and he (I already mentioned him - the guy who is responsible for treating me to Narok and likes good horror flicks and despises cheap B-Movies) was equally impressed. So, you see, it's not just me. Sometimes, other people actually agree with my assessment of a movie's qualities.

Ok, on to the plot (as this is a fairly new movie - DVD release in the US today, so you get treated to something that you might not have watched yet!):

Jack (our protagonist, convincingly played by Jesse Metcalfe of Desperate Housewives "fame") is desperate to talk to his sister, who has been committed to a mental institution after a failed suicide attempt. She didn't take their mother's death easily, and is mentally unstable. Jack tries to talk to her, but the asylum doesn't allow any visitors, and a wall of silence surrounds it. So he figures that the only way he can find out how his sister is doing, possibly get her out of the asylum again, is to... get himself committed and then break out with his sister, Lily. Sounds like a crazy idea to me, but then again, who am I to judge?


But as soon as he is in the aforementioned institution, he finds out that Dr. Gianetti (a great performance by Peter Stormare - he truly shines as the mad scientist/insane psychologist) is treating patients with a new drug called "Orpheum"... which is designed to strip away the layers of the higher brain functions where the sickness resides... so that he (Gianetti) reduces the patients to their lizard brain (read: Limbic System, my favourite part of the brain) in order to reintroduce "normal behaviour". Not a bad idea. The only problem is that, as you may or may not know, the limbic system is also the part of the brain that controls our aggression. So, "Orpheum" (which is awesome, by the way) has one little side effect: It makes people a bit... violent.

Welcome to the Middleton Psychiatric Institute!

The way Jack gets himself committed is awesome, by the way. However, aforementioned friend of mine noticed some minor plot holes and inconsistencies in the scenes of him playing insane, getting himself into the asylum and those immediately after he arrives there:


- Plothole #1: Considering the viable risk of blood-borne diseases, it is unlikely that two members of the altruistic American police would touch someone who is bleeding out of a variety of wounds without gloves ...or touch him in the way they do at all. HIV and other nasty things are just too much of a risk.

- Inconsistency #1: Jack is seen to violently cut off his own hair. When we see him in the asylum (in a nifty strait jacket that I want to have), he has a perfect haircut (note how perfect he managed to cut the hair on the back of his head). I severely doubt that this specific asylum, or any mental institution, would give a guy a haircut to make him presentable, so... well. Minor, but they exist.


One thing that might be a particularly personal thing with me, Insanitarium and my personal opinion of this movie is that the mental institution from this movie is eerily reminiscent of an asylum I have personal experience with. It's just creepy as hell to watch a horror movie about an asylum just to realise that the one you are familiar with looks and feels exactly the same. Maybe it's an international thing and all of those nice institutions look the same (down to the vomit-pus-yellow walls of the psych ward and the people just sitting around and... staring... into... no particular part of nothingness, see below) and that the orderlies behave in pretty much the same fashion all over the world... although, granted, we didn't have a blindingly white maximum security tract in the CDK. We just had a separate building, although it did have a lot of, well, white in it.

Eerily familiar, that...

Another thing that might have had an influence on how happy I am with this movie is that I love lunatics. Granted, I don't like asylums (unless I can walk out of them without any problem and am not obliged to come back the other day), but I like talking to crazy people. Well, the interesting crazy people (no insult to the numerous cases of bi-polar, conversion disorder, depression, agoraphobia etc., but really, schizophrenics and paranoid people on a quest to find the brain's daisy receptor in order to create the perfect drug out of daisies and thereby free humanity from its earthly bonds are more interesting to talk to).

It's easy to make friends in a mental institution. Trust me on that.

But yes, it's really creepy how Insanitarium manages to perfectly imitate my experience with a mental institution. Well, not the whole movie, obviously.

Welcome to Maximum Security. It is nice here... really.

One thing I particularly liked about the movie is how Jack has to face the reality of an asylum:

#1 - Yes, psych wards are scary if you're not insane yourself.
#2 - No, you can't get out if you're not supposed to.

So... back to the movie. Jack tries to free Lily with the help of Dave (a very convincing Kevin Sussman), a paranoid conspiracy theorist who can move around through the asylum more or less freely (at night, if no one catches him).

Say hello to Dave.

Here we are introduced to Plothole #2: How does Jack know the different security codes of the asylum? It's still believable that he knows about the wiring because he studied blueprints and all that jazz before getting himself committed, but the security codes? You'll hardly get those off the internet, or by walking into some office and nonchalantly asking for them.

He finds out that "Orpheum" is not actually a biochemical agent, but something far more awesome (I won't give it away, though - watch for yourself). He also finds out that there is much more to the drug than he thought - it's not just making people's eyes white and increasing their tendency for violent behaviour... it also makes them hungry. Hungry for ...warm stuff.

THAT kind of warm stuff.

And this gentleman (Mr. Loomis... *giggles*), who gets regular doses of Orpheum, if I might add that, has it bad. Very bad. I know what I'm talking about.

Notice the cramps and the silent screams. You can't see it on the screenshot, but his body is twitching. Poor bloke.

There's food directly in front of him.

AND on the floor, carelessly being wasted by just... dropping... onto... floor...

Instincts... taking... over... Need... taking... over...

PROFIT!!!!

Incidentally enough, he finds out about this whilst we get treated to something I'm not sure whether I should classify it as rape or consensual sex. My friend wasn't sure either, so I'll just not give a damn how to call it. But trust me, dear readers: It is awesome. Really, this movie has EVERYTHING!

(That's her slip in her mouth, in case you can't tell)

Bondage + Scalpels + Blood + Sex = Ultimate Awesome

And no, I am not a sick, perverted freak. Just because I think this is the best "sex"-scene I've witnessed in a horror flick thus far doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with me. I am not crazy! I have a certificate to prove it! ...damn, they took that away last month. Ah, well. *sighs*

Insanitarium also gives the proverbial nod to the epitome of all horror movies featuring cannibalistic patients of an asylum: Mr. Hawthorne (Armin Shimerman). Man, I was happy to see his performance. I've read reviews in which people complained that the character of Hawthorne is a total ripoff of our dear Dr. Lecter, but hey, what happened to paying homage to a good movie/character? I personally enjoyed it.



Also, Mr. Hawthorne is the first person who shares my views and opinions about what constitutes proper food:

Hawthorne: "This food is DEAD!"
Assistant: "I'll see if Gianetti can whip up a steak. How do you like it?"


Hawthorne: "...alive."

Well, our movie turns into a gorefest after Jack's discovery of the dangers of Orpheum and his attempt to flee the asylum together with Dave and his sister Lily.


Did I mention that the gore is awesome?




In short, let me give you my personal impression of Insanitarium:
The camerawork is perfect for this kind of movie. Sure, it's not something someone would win an Oscar for, but it works in this instance - and it works very good. Some of the shots are literally works of art, and the use of colour also warrants to be mentioned. Very good, very convincing.

The blood and gore are top notch. I'm hard to satisfy in that department, and damn, I didn't think "Meh, there could be more graphic violence and blood and gore" for one second of this movie. It's a crazy ride full of violence, blood and gore that should satisfy every gorehound. At least it satisfied me. A lot.

The pacing was awesome. The movie never failed to deliver the wonderful feeling of suspense that so many other movies in the great and glorious world of horror lack.

The directing is awesome, the editing is awesome, the soundtrack really gets into you and adds to the suspense (it is also perfectly adjusted to the fast pacing of the movie, something that I appreciate - there is nothing more infuriating to me than music or sound effects that just don't fit the pace of a movie... well, besides other things, but that's one of the most infuriating things I can imagine pertaining to movies). A+ for all of those points.

Also, let's not forget the acting. All of our main characters were really good (as I am lucky enough to be able to say that I've never seen one second of Desperate Housewives in my whole life, I didn't have any preconceived notions about Metcalfe), and I enjoyed their interaction. The dialogues never really seemed forced and appeared to come natural.
What impressed me most, though, was the acting by those who played the crazies. Kudos to you, ladies and gentlemen. Having some experience with psych wards and maximum security wards myself, I can honestly say that they really got the crazies down to a T. There was nothing artificial in their portrayal of insane people. I've seen the real thing, people, and this wasn't far away from it. Not at all.

I love this movie.

10/10 icepick lobotomies.

Beyond the Wall of Sleep (2006)

First of all: This is going to be screenshot-intensive. I just adore the pretty pictures a lot, and they say so much more than my words ever could. That said... here we go.

So... say hello to Joe. Joe is an inbred guy... and he's also special.

As fierce as the Wendigo, yet with the curiousity of a wild cat!

Story: Joe is, as I already mentioned, special. He also massacred his whole family and then ran wild through the Catskills mountains, got caught, brought to Arkham Asylum (sound familiar?), where strange things begin to happen...


Beautiful pictures. I actually love the beginning of this movie. Colours...
frantic cuts. I love frantic cuts with crazy pictures.

Also, any movie that starts with a reference to primordial ooze already has bonus points in my personal little book of "Rate This Movie". "Primordial Ooze" - it just has a certain ring to it. It makes me think of ...old things. Ancient things, even. Azathoth, Nyarlathotep... I really read too much Lovecraft.

At this point, I want to add something: If you play this movie slowly, VERY slowly with VLC media player, you will see HOW frantic those cuts are. To actually show you, I'd have to put a video up, and frankly, I am too lazy for that. You'll have to see for yourself - if you still want to after what I am about to reveal about this movie.


In case you happen to be ignorant of this specific work of The Master (read: Howard Phillips Lovecraft), you can read up on it here.

So, let's see... We start out with aforementioned pretty and frantic pictures, a mention of primordial ooze (see, or better read, above), some hints of blood and gore, followed by...

...weirdness.

For example, children dancing around, singing. With flowers. Around our protagonist, who appears to be a tiny little bit insane (see first screenshot).

Then we get two search parties. One of them is lead by the Sheriff, played by Tom Savini. I love spotting the guy. It's some sort of hobby for me, I admit it.

I quote: "Joe! Joe! No kill, find!", with a few added grunts.
Note: This is NOT Tom Savini. This is Peter.

He is the leader of this search party:

Pretty guys, right?

Snap to our nice intern at Arkham Asylum, Edward...


Looks like a trustworthy experiment, doesn't it?


I wonder if she volunteered for that treatment. Then again, judging from the moaning - and I mean ecstatic moaning - she seems to enjoy it. A lot.

As in... really.

You know you can trust your doctor.

... I mean, he looks trustworthy, doesn't he?

Then, we get whisked away, together with our trusty and trustworthy intern, Edward, to the examination of the inbred insane protagonist (as opposed to our trustworthy protagonist, intern Edward) - our dear Joe.

Here we learn that our protagonist has a "shape" on his back - a face, perhaps?
...or evil twins, unseparated at birth?!


I want to draw your attention to the nearly invisible thing.... shape.... on the back of poor ol' Joe. This, ladies and gentlemen, is supposed to be his Evil Twin, "unseparated at birth" (sorry, I just love that phrase) and responsible for the grisly murders that happened in the "inbred-area" of the Catskills mountains (aka, NOT where Arkham Asylum is).

This is, of course, an anomaly.

Also, remember:

When trying to find out what happened at the scene of a grisly massacre in inbred territory, applying leeches is tantamount to success. You should also use needles. BIG needles. Above, you see Joe (the one with the humanely placed collar that holds him up), Dr. Wardlow (the guy with the needle) and Dr. Fenton (who runs Arkham Asylum with all the professionalism you can expect from a slightly demented doctor). Note that Dr. Wardlow is also not exactly the most ...sane alienist the Asylum has ever seen.

Which brings me to a point: Every medical practitioner in this movie is crazy in one way or the other. It's a delight.



Ah, Wardlow... what should I say. This man is fond of needles - I mean, look at him. He is leaving the examination room (where he tried to make dear inbred, special Joe talk by putting leeches on him - remember: Leeches heal EVERYTHING! - and stab him with this monster of a needle), and is rightly pissed off. I mean... he didn't get to stab the, err... patient... with his needle!

Consequently, he treats us to the most random shot given to a patient ever.

"Wouldn't want to waste a perfectly good shot."

... indeed.

I want to note that the dialogues are absolutely brilliant. I mean that as a purveyor and connoisseur of bad B-Movies. BRILLIANT.


My mind wants to take this as some sort of deep symbolism. The light in the vague shape of a cross (don't disagree with me, it is DEFINITELY a cross in the one short frame in which you can see it without accompanying madman) brightening the darkness of the cell - the cell which is life itself in which we are but insane specks of insignificant dust, powerless (signified through the straight jacket), raging against the dying of the light which gives us but a brief glimpse of salvation from this bound, powerless, dark existence...

But for some reason, I don't think it is intended as such. Honestly, I think it was put in there because it looks awesome.

Back to our dear intern, Edward Eischel.


Do you still trust him? ...I wouldn't. I've seen that look on people's faces. It usually means that they don't exactly have your best interests at heart. In the case of an intern at Arkham Asylum, that might be normal (after all, we all know what Arkham is like and what kind of people get interred there - I bet my vinyl collection that Wilbur Whateley, if he had, uhm... survived, would have been there, and not out of his own free will... ... why are you looking at me like that? You don't know who Wilbur Whateley was? FOR SHAME! Go and educate yourself and come back when you can understand HP Lovecraft references! Pffffffft.... heretic. Heathen! ...where was I... ah, yes...), but I just want to draw attention to it. Maybe because he reminds me a tiny little bit of St. Francis of Death in my 2nd favourite movie (whoever can guess what that movie is can wish for a review).

In case I forgot to mention: People die when Joe sleeps. This is actually one of the most important things of the ...plot, but somehow, it never really comes across that strongly. The rest of the movie just makes you pay less attention to it. Which is a pity, because this could have been used to induce some real suspense... but hey, we are talking about a glorious abysmal B-Movie here.

So yes, people die when Joe sleeps. Like this fellow:

(No, he's not dead yet, but for Raptor Jesus' sake, I wasn't patient enough to grab a screenshot of him being gutted and dismembered, because, like everything in this movie, it happens in frantic, hectical shots and cuts that you have to sit through like 4 or 5 times in slow motion in order to be able to grab the frame you want...)

"Curious..."

Yes, my first reaction would be to say "curious..." as well when faced with SLEEP scrambled on the wall with blood. Especially after I spent a night in the cell of the weird patient who continually says that when he sleeps, bad things happen. Like that unexplained murder in the Asylum right after our dear, special Joe was checked into Arkham Asylum.

But you know, Edward (our dear mad intern) is different. What makes other men shiver excites him!

He also quotes Dr. Giggles. When he talks to his beautiful Ardelia (read: the experiment). Oh, and he collects brains. Beautiful brains, at that (his words, not mine).

DO YOUR LOINS ACHE FOR MY SYNAPTIC IMPULSES?!

- Why, yes, they do. She is orgasming allover the place. With her skull cut open and her brain exposed. Also, this line deserves a prize for the best one liner ever uttered in a movie EVER.

"You are keeping a cadaver as a ...a... kind of SEX TOY?!"

- Why, yes. She ACHES FOR HIS SYNAPTIC IMPULSES! Did I already mention that I totally adore this line?


Oh, and something I bet you didn't know - today in our latest installment of "Things That Doctors Do": This woman is NOT writhing in agony.

In fact, she is not in agony at all. Far from it. Seriously, experimenting with orgasming females seems to be common practice amongst mad scientists of the Arkham Asylum-persuasion.

...anyways.

Stop looking at those boobs.

So, now our insane intern starts plunging microphones and microbes and needles into Joe's brain - to try and make the "fetal twin" talk. He does it with the subtlety of doctors all over the Lovecraftian world - by doing science to the patient. In this case, this involves electricity. Lots of electricity, in case you were wondering.


I just put that one in to distract you, because those boobs ARE distracting when trying to follow the dialogue, which doesn't make a lot of sense anyways. Hell, they are distracting when you're trying to write a review.

...perky, aren't they? Nah, I'm not staring. Far too well-behaved for that.


So behold... Amducius speaks. With MIND VOICE!

And then... sleep. And during sleep... things happen. Or rather, Amducius (thing on Joe's back/in Joe/...) happens. If you know what I mean. As in... people die when Joe sleeps, and Amducius can roam free and ...kill people...

... from beyond the wall of sleep (see what I did there?!)... *insert Re-Animator theme here*


In case you can't tell: This is an exploding head. I'd put up the second screenshot I took of this particular scene, for exploding heads give me pleasure and happyful... but you know... lazy.

So... on with the plot. Or should I make that "plot"? Our good intern gets kicked out of Arkham Asylum for political and personal reasons. But Edward is not happy - not happy at all.

There is no happyful in his mind now.

His research... gone. Dead to his family, he needs to solve the mystery of Joe and Amducius on his own. Consequently, he visits Joe's house. There's not much to see there but some corpses (massacre, remember?), bodyparts... and Edward slipping farther into the world of ... you guessed it, Amducius.

The children start talking to him (in his head) - they want to show him how they and 'their people' came to this (our) world.

Say hello to the parental units.

I won't give the details away. Let's just say that evil alien entities had a lot of incest to produce the perfect vessel for Amducius, and now the children need Edward to help them. For some reason... I think they were the leaders of the world and ruled humankind, so they need to be the chosen people again and need Daddy (Amducius). Or something. It's like... "Hey, we are the Small Ones of the Great Old Ones, could you, like... get us back to power?"

So, our hero, Edward, rushes back to the hospital. To help the critters... eh, I mean, children of... the parental units pictured above.

Arriving there, he is confronted with HORROR:

"MY BRAINS! MY BEAUTIFUL BRAINS! YOU MONSTERS! THEY WERE PERFECT SPECIMEN! THEY WERE MY BRAINS!"

...a man mourning for his brains.

A minute of silence, everyone. This is serious business. Those perfect specimen... *sheds a tear*...

...

Did I mention that this movie shows the most gratuitious kicking of mental patients by doctors ever? This also includes ramming handicapped patients with trolleys. The patients get kicked around, thrown down stuff, thrown against walls, run over, have their throats slit open, get suffocated, cut open... totally random.

Also, we get treated to cadaver-dancing. As in, doctor dancing with Ardelia, zombie-sex-toy.


Did I say dancing? Err... I mean... you know what I mean. In case you can't tell, that's the good Dr. Fenton getting rid of his restraining garments, aka pants, for he is consumed with lust for Ardelia, zombie-girl.

Sidenote: THIS is what happens after the prelude to... dancing. Yes. Dancing.


That, dear readers, is zombie-girl ripping off the skull of the good doctor who wanted to do her good. Note that tongue and lower jaw are still attached to the body. But... was this unexpected? Nah. The look on her face when he started to get rid of his pants said enough to foreshadow this.

Edward gets a little too excited with the whole Amducius-business, so he decides to drill a hole into Joe's head in order to "come to Amducius". That's when we learn that he also has drilled a hole into his own head .

Because... "The Brain needs AIR!"

...yes. Yes, of course.

Hence the overabundance of holes drilled into human foreheads in today's society. I just live in the wrong part of the world, otherwise I could possibly appreciate the wonder and beauty of the head-hole more than I do now.

Now that both of them have holes in their heads to allow the brain to breathe healthy air, our intern proceeds to directly connect himself to his ...patient (?). And he sees....

...he sees the wisdom of the ages.

If you ever come across a folder named "Wisdom of the Ages", you might find some of the following inside (and possibly more!):

A random sigil from the Lemegeton...

...a slightly psychedelic looking shot of Cthulhu on a Necronomicon sigil...

...yourself in a quite bald state of being...

...cute critters... erm, children who want you to bring their Elder God Daddy back...

...and some intestines being ripped out.

Now, as far as I remember, the original story has the being in Joe shoot out from him, becoming a star and fighting against the "adversary" in a place far away on the nightly sky. Let's see what they do here.

GROUP HUG TIME!

Let us all bow before Amducius! Brains connected in regular currents, linked to OUR MASTER AMDUCIUS!! ...ehm, sorry. Got carried away there a bit. I would NEVER BLASPHEME, MY LORD NYARLATHOTEP! *cough* Ahem.


Wait a second. Amducius looks like Bad-CGI-Cthulhu? Why does EVERYTHING Mythos- or Lovecraft-related have to look like Cthulhu?! Next thing I know is they'll depict Hastur like Cthulhu.

But, all in all: A truly delightful movie. Cheesy one-liners, brilliant dialogues, frantic cuts, and a fine parody of old film noir. Not a faithful adaption of Lovecraft, but let's be honest - what is? Stuart Gordon's Dagon aside, and to some degree also the Re-Animator series (if you pierce the scattered pieces together).

7/10 loins aching for the input of synaptic impulses