Customer Reviews

Asylum Days

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

I rather enjoyed this film. I'll not post any spoilers but to say the other reviewer is too much like most other reviewers - picking a film apart rather than simply suspending belief and enjoying a flick. Asylum Days has a very creepy feel throughout. It's not a great film, but it serves well enough for entertainment value.

The movie starts out with Laurie Cardell, a young actress with a troubled but blocked out past, and Daniel, her biggest, stalkerish, fan. Daniel's brother,Nathan, is released from prison (where he was imprisoned for years for killing Daniel and his father). As a gift to his brother, Nathan kidnaps Laurie, and brings her to the abandoned orphanage where she lived until it caught on fire. Although Daniel wants to let her go, he helps Nathan force Laurie to act out a script that Daniel wrote. We find out that a vicious nun that tortured and murdered children had been the head of the orphanage and had supposedly died in the fire. It is also revealed that Daniel and Laurie were both at the orphanage as children and that it was them who set the orphanage on fire. But the nun is not dead and comes after them for revenge.

The movie is good up until the end. The characters pasts are revealed slowly and in flashes so that the viewer is drawn in. One is intrigued by the relationships between Laurie and Daniel and Daniel and Nathan. However the ultimate revelations about Laurie and Daniel's history comes suddenly, as does the fact that the nun is still alive. The ending is a bit unrealistic (even as far as movies go) but I feel like if they had made it longer it could have been more credible. Allowing for the budget, I'd say this is a decent movie but not the best I've ever seen.

Do not waste your time, money or brain cells by even inserting this movie into your DVD player. It's horrible in every way. I can't believe I actually paid $1 for this.

It's spectacular how truly bad this movie is. I watch a lot of movies: the slowest moving French movies are gripping in comparison. I even watched all through, always thinking: "it really can't be this bad, can it?"; well, yes, it really can and is that bad. It only gets worse the more you watch. Some of my favorite "bad" moments:

! spoiler (as if you need more warning) !

* psycho son-like-father moments including a touching spouse abuse that somehow got recorded for posterity in a family super-8 movie and provides nostalia for the boys

* cornball cop-talk that tries to be funny but comes off stupid like the pizza-maggot non-sequitor, the "I'll bet you she was kidnapped just because it advances the plot better" scene and the "I can't call for back-up 'cuz I'd rather get killed off than cry wolf" scene.

* the LA cop so stupid it seems a revelation that there might be connection between the asylum in LA and the heroine's kidnapping only *after* he completely reads a 6+ volume screenplay about how the heroine spent time in the same LA asylum

* goofball gas station lady who is paralytically afraid of the asylum, then denies killing anyone (unprovoked) to a cop and later eagerly jumps in another cop's car to escort him personally to asylum

* heroine finds a dead body (a policeman) and somehow knows to search it thoroughly to find his gun, despite never having seen him before or knowing he's a cop. He's lying on his back and the gun is in his back waistband!

* Rube-Goldberg decapitation climax that is still stunning in its utter contrivance

* despite abuse and kidnapping, heroine has a mushy moment with kidnapper (!!) that clearly is leading to intense romance in the second after the movie ends

It's only redeeming feature is that you can show it at a Bad Movie Party. Also good for cinema school classes to demonstrate all the ways to *not* make a movie.