PlatinumRead
Just so...so bad
Platicsco
Good story, Not enough for a whole film
Gurlyndrobb
While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
Dirtylogy
It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.
Hailey (lindsborggirl)
I enjoyed this movie but It wasn't that scary ... I've been more scared by a video game that took place in an asylum . I would have to say the best parts were when ivy told Burke to go to hell and also when Maddison said " give me your suffering mother*****r!" That was pretty clever , I would say this movie was more sad then scary .. while I agree Burke shouldn't have been performing lobotomies on healthy teens and they did the right thing to kill him , I think they should have blessed the building before using it for anything . The only part that really scared me was when Tommy got his tongue cut out . Also Rez was a freaking creep! . The saddest parts to me were when Mackey got stabbed as a little boy and when Maddison saw the vision of her brother committing suicide . Overall for my first horror movie it was pretty OK .
chris dimarino
Looking back on Asylum, it did a lot of things well. The mood was set right, the viewer was able to get familiar with the group of teens before they go, and the deaths were deep and interesting. However I had the vibe during and after the movie that it was not above average. A few more big name actors could've helped. Also the story is forced on you, a little unbelievable and makes no ammends.Asylum does a good job of setting up a scary plot. They are college students who are living in a dorm that was once an insane asylum run by a doctor who was killed by his patients for his brutal techniques. The deaths were very well thought out. The mood emanates very well and there are plenty of scary moments.The biggest problem with asylum was the linear, predictable and unforgiving and under explained plot. A little twist here and a cliff hanger there really would've helped. The acting was good for a horror movie, but no one really stuck. Maybe if there was a little more focus on the main character and a bigger named actress it may have stuck more.I would recommend this movie to any horror movie fan. It's not great but will have at least a couple parts you admire. If anything at the end you wont be upset you watched it.
Rathko
Here we have the usual teen-horror shenanigans - six kids begin graduate school at a former asylum and find their troubled childhoods being manipulated and exploited by the ghost of a psychotic lobotomist. It features all the usual genre tropes - boarded up loony bin, thunder and lighting, painfully annoying college kids, flickering lights, hallucinations and hauntings. Though everyone involved does a professional job, there's nothing particularly new or original here and the clichés are presented with the typical WB gloss of perfect makeup and flattering mood lighting. The abandoned asylum is suitably creepy, though, as abandoned asylums always are, and Ellis is able to orchestrate a few good spook-house scares. The blood and gore, while graphic, are cartoonishly over-the-top and seem designed to elicit screams from teenage girls rather than serve the plot and, as a result, are oddly ineffective. The completely generic, paint-by-numbers storyline grows tedious pretty quickly, especially in a drawn out and sagging second act. The climactic showdown - all dark corridors, dreams and hallucinations, combined with a sado-masochistic, blade-wielding killer - seems to be inspired by Freddy Krueger and Pinhead in equal measure. An okay movie to play in the background with beer and pizza, and better than the usual direct-to-video dross, but nothing special.
dfmapalo4
Okay, so first of all, this movie was made in 2008. It shouldve been better since we have improved with special effects over the years. Horror fans seek something new and different than all this "Re-imagining crap we keep getting of a lot of classic horror films. Anyway, throughout this movie, I saw a lot of scenes and themes from older, better and classic movies. For example, our "Killer" is bacially a phsycopath man who goes around killing teens in twisted and nasty ways. Just like the "Saw" series, except the dude is already dead. What the hell? So he is a ghost that is miracurosly alive and in good shape coming back for his so called "Revenge" just like Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th. Burke is the killer's name and he has the Kruegar/Voorhees/Black Christmas theme to him. Next...we have our "wonderful" death scenes. Which are just like Black Christmas with the gouging of the eyes, ripping of the lips and tongue, hanging someone hanging from a string, chopping a girls head off...typical nasty crap. It is also very much Nightmare on Elm Street. The killer appears to his victims after the lights go out and he is able to transform into people's parents and make them re-live their worst nightmare. Just like Freddy Krueger.So I have made this clear that I hate this movie. Its plain stupid and retardedly messed up. I will explain more on the message boards.Directors...don't mess with the classics!!!! ~Sam~