Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Very Dark and Very Creepy..., March 20, 2008
I watched this last night, and I will have to say I was very pleasantly surprised. Although horror is my favorite genre, much of the "new breed" of horror films are just plain...HORRIBLE. This is not the case here.
Set in London, the story follows a young archaeologist (Gina Phillips) who has discovered the "dig of a lifetime," only to be told the site has been quarantined because of a possible outbreak of the plague, and the site will be destroyed "in the morning." As most horror stories would have it, she throws caution to the wind and decides to go back for one more look. She causes way more than she bargained for. She finds herself trapped inside, along with four intruders, and they must find their way out before it's too late.
Very stylishly done, by first-time director Curtis Radclyffe, I found his use of lighting and sound very effective. There really is no "monster" here...so to speak. However, I was bothered by the "whispering child." I never could figure out what she was saying, and I think that message played a major part in the film. The gore, by the way, is handled very nicely; most of it is in black and white.
To make a really good horror movie, you don't need a maniac in a mask, or someone chasing nubile young women--scantilly clad, of course--with a chainsaw. Lighting, sound, and setting the right mood will do it all for you.
Gina Phillips was adequate as Anna (the archaeologist), and the supporting cast also turned out strong performances. Kuddos to first-time director Curtis Radclyffe. I'm anxious to see what he will do next. The film, amazingly enough, lasts 129 minutes. I watched the unrated version, but I don't know what it couldn't be released as an R.
Rent this one for a stormy, dark night. I don't think you'll be disappointed.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not entirely awful once it gets moving, but the cinematography... gah., March 30, 2009
The Sickhouse (Curtis Radclyffe, 2007)
Radclyffe (Sweet Angel Mine) went eleven years between his first and second movies. I haven't seen the first one. After seeing the second, I'm not sure I care to. The Sickhouse is badly-shot (and in the world of low-budget horror movies, which are as a rule badly-shot, to single one out for this is really saying something), incomprehensible for fully half its length, not in any way scary, and in general close to unwatchable. So why, then, am I giving it such a high rating? Because once it starts to make sense, it almost manages to redeem itself.
Anna (Ring Around the Rosie's Gina Philips) is an American archaeologist working in Britain, excavating a plague hospital from the 1660s. She's stumbled upon what appears to be a base of multiple child murder, but tests of the soil in the are show that plague is still dormant there, and so the authorities, more worried about the plague coming back than they are about a possible three-hundred-odd-year-old murder case, are shutting the dig site down. Desperate to find out more, Anna sneaks in despite the posted guards. This is always a great idea in a horror film. Meanwhile, a band of young-and-beautifuls out celebrating one's twenty-first birthday get themselves involved in a fatal accident, flee the scene, and also end up in the dig site. They meet up with Anna and discover that, perhaps, they may be trapped with a three-hundred-year-old serial killer.
Yes, I'm serious. Also, I should mention that I cribbed much of that synopsis from various other reviews, because I couldn't make heads or tails of the first half of this movie. It wasn't edited, it was butchered. Radclyffe's (seemingly common) mistake of equating "darkness" with "atmosphere" doesn't help, either; much of this movie is simply too dark to see. Still, once Anna and the group of kids joins up and we actually get a sense of where the movie is going, for some odd reason the editing improves. (We get full sentences!) There's actually a story, and it's a half-decent one. The movie's still not much on suspense, acting, or sound (and I should mention the soundtrack, which you are either going to love or hate; I fall on the former side), but once there's a story you can sink your teeth into and you start getting some sense of the characters, it becomes surprisingly watchable. It never gets good, but sometimes watchable is enough.
In any case, probably best to avoid unless it's the last horror movie on the shelf at your local video rental store. After all, if it's a choice between this and the latest Michael Bay abomination, you should always go for the bad, low-budget horror flick. **
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
I feel sick, September 16, 2008
I watch a lot of horror movies, ghost stories especially. I'm very rarely frightened by any of them, and visually disturbed only a little more often, but this movie managed to do a little of the former and a lot of the latter. Having just watched it, I'm left with a feeling of filth and taint, like when I first saw the video for Aphex Twin's "Come to Daddy", oh so many years ago. I'm even somewhat nauseous. That's how visually disturbing this movie was at times, I was almost compelled to start thinking about maybe vomiting.
The visuals are exactly what I've been looking for in a horror movie, and they are really where the feeling of filth comes from. The colors are drab, the lighting is unnaturally bleak and the camera work is reminiscent of a nightmare. The shaky-cam technique doesn't always work out to the film's advantage, but for the most part, it's used quite well. The ghosts are pretty good, but I think their presence could have used some more obviating instead of them just showing up every once in a while. The atmosphere is icky, but it's not creepy. The entire movie is pretty well devoid of horrifying moments. You'll probably be grossed out, not scared.
The acting is pretty good. You may think that acting in a horror movie doesn't require any talent, but try looking scared while you run from what you know is just a guy in a suit, a puppet or empty space to be edited with CG later. Then try doing it all day and you'll have an idea of what it takes to film an entire flick. The characters were all believable, and even though they weren't as well fleshed out or deep as some may like, they weren't simple plot bots. That role seemed well filled by the ghosts, whose motives were pretty much unknown until the last few minutes, and even then it's sketchy at best.
Not all is well with the movie, however. The editing sucked. There are times where the film moved way too slowly, and the aforementioned shaky cam view sometimes made it unnecessarily difficult to follow what was going on. The movie's worst offense was the map. Every once in a while, it comes out of the movie to show you where the next scene will be on a map of the complex. It's cheesy, ugly, stupid and gives off a horrible "Uwe Boll" stench. The director would do well to learn from this mistake.
All in all, it was a good horror movie. If the director can capitalize on his ability to perturb and mix it with real horror, he may bring us a true horror classic. Until then, you can watch this and pretend you're scared.
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