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After his
sister is admitted to a mental institution,
Jack decides to play insane so that he can get his
sister out of there. It doesn't seem too hard at first
but what he doesn't know is that the doctor in charge
of the asylum is performing gruesome experiments on
the patients, turning them into flesh-eating mutants.
Oh goodie. Another horror flick revolving around a
crazy doctor in a mental institution. How many films
have we seen with this concept over the last couple
of years? And yes, of course it's a semi-zombie flick,
what else could it possibly be? Insanitarium is the
latest DTV horror thriller that was probably meant
for a theatrical release but ended up being dumped
DTV due to its uninspiring content (a la Pathology
which I couldn't even get through).
Jesse Metcalfe (the guy we all love to hate) plays
Jack, a young man whose sister has recently been
admitted to an asylum. In order to get her out of
there he decides to play insane so that he also gets
admitted (oh that makes sense). Little does he know
that the doctor running the hospital has come up with
a new drug that turns people into flesh-craving maniacs
with crazy white eyes (obviously this is not the
purpose of the drug but that's what it does anyway).
Together with his sister and some new-found friends
he has to find a way to get out of the asylum without
getting eaten or worse...
Generic is the keyword here folks but it's actually
not as bad as one may suspect. To my big surprise
I found myself enjoying Insanitarium much more than
I thought that I would. It's got nice production
values, a good pace and it's actually pretty entertaining.
Sure, it's at the height of mediocrity but in a world
where horror movies has become a synonym for crap,
mediocrity isn't so bad. Jesse Metcalfe is naturally
obnoxious and full of himself as usual but we have a
couple of good actors in here such as Olivia Munn,
Molly Bryant and Peter Stormare.
Insanitarium is one of those movies that should be
rubbish but isn't. It's forgettable and generic but
in the end it's a pretty enjoyable zombie flick (or
mutant flick) a la 28 Days Later. If you're in the
mood for a teen-zombie flick with little to no
originality in it, look no further, Insanitarium is
the film for you, and it's got some decent gore and
nudity in it as well for those of you who watch movies
for those two reasons alone.
We get a broken off arm, a meatcleaver in the head,
some guts, some stabbings, an impalement and a whole
lot more. Surprisingly gory.
28 weeks later-like rock. Very uninspired.
While we've certainly seen the exact same movie several
times before, Insanitarium is still a surprisingly
decent "zombie" flick, even if a bit too generic for
its own good. With Midnight Meat Train coming up, I'm
sure that Jeff Buhler is one to watch. Worth checking
out if you're into teen-thrillers.
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