It’s not a good idea if your school converts an old asylum into dorm rooms. Even worse if the ghost of the insane doctor that killed and tortured the patients is the ectoplasmic hall monitor and is practicing his own form of psycho therapy.
Madison (Sarah Roemer) is going to college. It should be the best time in a young girl’s life, but Madison is attending the same school where her brother committed suicide. Her brother is only following in the footsteps of her mentally ill father.
She’s living in the dorm on campus with Tommy (Travis Van Winkle), Maya (Caroline Garcia), Holt (Jake Muxworthy), and String (Cody Kasch). They’re being watched over by snarky floor monitor Rez (Randall Sims). String tells the group of freshmen that the dorm that they’re living in was once an insane asylum.
Dr. Magnus Burke (Mark Rolston) used to torture teenagers under the guise of curing their mental illnesses and one day his patients revolted and killed him. As in all of these types of stories, his body was never found – scary stuff kids says Count Floyd.
The fish are told to stay out of the south tower of the dorm since it’s not being remodeled till next year. Of course, our heroes use String’s hacking skills to find out the code to get into this locked section of the dorm and they unleash the evil spirit of Dr. Burke. Before you can say “Freddy Krueger,” Dr. Burke is practicing his own special kind of analysis on the residents of the dorm.
David R. Ellis who happened to helm Snakes on a Plane directs Asylum. However, this time around his film really doesn’t have much bite [insert rimshot here]. Asylum borrows heavily from Nightmare on Elm Street with the corpse-like Dr. Burke popping up and using his victim’s psychoses against them.
He also cracks one-liners as he kills his patients, which also puts you in mind of that burnt up fellow from Elm St.
That may be the best part of the show as he slices and dices his way through the cavalcade of cardboard characters. The performances aren’t that bad but they’re characters that you’ve seen in many a horror film.
That’s probably the major problem of Asylum is that you’ve really seen it all before in other horror films, even when Dr. Burke goes shirtless for the big finale and has the barbed wire and leather of a low rent cenobite.
Asylum is presented in anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions. There are no special features.
They say that a sign that you’re insane is that you keep repeating the same thing and expecting something different to happen. They say that a sing that you’re insane… hey wait a minute.
The makers of Asylum repeat the plot of several better horror films and expect the audience to stay awake for their lobotomies. That’s just not gonna happen.
Asylum is now available at Amazon . As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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