The basic plot is simple enough as are most "asylum" movie plots. An asylum is a perfect place for mayhem as there are plenty of abandoned ones around the world for set locations. Dark Asylum is well directed and written, and has overtones of Jean-Luc Goddard. How? Some scenes are cut and some events are not shown on screen, but cut out so that our minds can fill in the details. The shots and scenes are well connected. Opening jumps out at us with the cops going into the sewers to discover Trashers lair. There is one shot of him on the ground and cops and flashlights in the back ground with light columns. Would have been a pretty neat DVD cover.
Lighting is superb, with great reflections. Larry Drake is great as The Trasher and reminds me of Thor from those 50's movies and a little Odd Job thrown in for good measure. Pretty decent job from super model, Paulina too. Overall very well crafted with some asylum surprises. The Trasher is caught in the beginning of the movie and sent to an asylum for examination...ha..as though. Maggie is called in to do the evaluation before midnight, only an hour away. The Trasher is intelligent, crafty and cunning which does reflect some true life situations. He figures out their actions pretty quickly.
Anyway, he gets sent to the nut house and Maggie, a psych doctor, is sent to analyze him, and the surprise is: her daddy was a serial killer as well. The Trasher, well, trashes most of the security guards and doctors in the asylum and chases Maggie and Quitz, the janitor, throughout the entire facility. Of course this has been done before but, the director Georgory Gieras, has added some panache to the "asylum" genre, with good direction and script constructs.
Larry Drake plays The Trasher with menacing delight and of course you get can't beat chasing a super model like Paulina Porizkova who plays Maggie. One major error was not getting Pauline out of her business pants suit into something much more revealing, showing at least legs, or cleavage, or both as this is mandatory in horror/thriller genres.
Maggie hooks up with the janitor, Judd Nelson, who can't seem to decide if he is Steve Zahn or Marty Feldman, but being a geeky janitor he knows the asylum inside/out and does lead The Trasher on a wild somewhat of a maze chase through the asylum.
Did everyone catch the homage to Cukoo's Nest? It was where The Trasher gained control of the loudspeaker system and plays Nest music and says, "Time for your medicine"...funny, and the movie needed a lot more of those kinds of punches. And there was an homage to Desperado, when the Maggie gets asked about her last name...buco..bocho..? as Steve Buscemi did at the bar in 1995 movie Desperado. Very clever reference.
Of course cops are inadequate as in real life. Many times they are baffled, confused and unsure of what to do in a crisis situation as in Columbine, so this is not unrealistic. And of course, what would you do while being chased by some 300 lb maniac. Huh? Take him head on? or run? yeah, run!
Several visceral scenes are cut as others have mentioned, which is curious. After all, it is a horror/slasher flick. The Trashser wants the key to get out. The janitor swallows the key. The next scene should be him being eviscerated for the key, but we never see it..whaaa? We simply see The Trasher with a bloody key. Maybe the director was working off the old Hays morality code from the 30's to the 60's. Or..or he is spoofing our expectation of seeing guts spilled over the floor. Hmmmm...I need to see the DVD extras.
Overall though, a very high production value, good acting, nice maniacal killer, and the usual baffled cops actually make this an above average thriller. The Hungarians and Romanians seem to have good production crews which is why a lot of asylum movies are made there.
I saw this On Demand TV and found it to be above average, but get Paulina out of those pants suits and into something hot, doctor or not she is a super model.
Some folks panned this film as worst, bad, etc, but they have really not been to some "Horror festivals", like I have, with film entries shot on a cheap video camera, and with no lighting, plot, script, or direction, and just lots of meat counter entrails.
Lighting is superb, with great reflections. Larry Drake is great as The Trasher and reminds me of Thor from those 50's movies and a little Odd Job thrown in for good measure. Pretty decent job from super model, Paulina too. Overall very well crafted with some asylum surprises. The Trasher is caught in the beginning of the movie and sent to an asylum for examination...ha..as though. Maggie is called in to do the evaluation before midnight, only an hour away. The Trasher is intelligent, crafty and cunning which does reflect some true life situations. He figures out their actions pretty quickly.
Anyway, he gets sent to the nut house and Maggie, a psych doctor, is sent to analyze him, and the surprise is: her daddy was a serial killer as well. The Trasher, well, trashes most of the security guards and doctors in the asylum and chases Maggie and Quitz, the janitor, throughout the entire facility. Of course this has been done before but, the director Georgory Gieras, has added some panache to the "asylum" genre, with good direction and script constructs.
Larry Drake plays The Trasher with menacing delight and of course you get can't beat chasing a super model like Paulina Porizkova who plays Maggie. One major error was not getting Pauline out of her business pants suit into something much more revealing, showing at least legs, or cleavage, or both as this is mandatory in horror/thriller genres.
Maggie hooks up with the janitor, Judd Nelson, who can't seem to decide if he is Steve Zahn or Marty Feldman, but being a geeky janitor he knows the asylum inside/out and does lead The Trasher on a wild somewhat of a maze chase through the asylum.
Did everyone catch the homage to Cukoo's Nest? It was where The Trasher gained control of the loudspeaker system and plays Nest music and says, "Time for your medicine"...funny, and the movie needed a lot more of those kinds of punches. And there was an homage to Desperado, when the Maggie gets asked about her last name...buco..bocho..? as Steve Buscemi did at the bar in 1995 movie Desperado. Very clever reference.
Of course cops are inadequate as in real life. Many times they are baffled, confused and unsure of what to do in a crisis situation as in Columbine, so this is not unrealistic. And of course, what would you do while being chased by some 300 lb maniac. Huh? Take him head on? or run? yeah, run!
Several visceral scenes are cut as others have mentioned, which is curious. After all, it is a horror/slasher flick. The Trashser wants the key to get out. The janitor swallows the key. The next scene should be him being eviscerated for the key, but we never see it..whaaa? We simply see The Trasher with a bloody key. Maybe the director was working off the old Hays morality code from the 30's to the 60's. Or..or he is spoofing our expectation of seeing guts spilled over the floor. Hmmmm...I need to see the DVD extras.
Overall though, a very high production value, good acting, nice maniacal killer, and the usual baffled cops actually make this an above average thriller. The Hungarians and Romanians seem to have good production crews which is why a lot of asylum movies are made there.
I saw this On Demand TV and found it to be above average, but get Paulina out of those pants suits and into something hot, doctor or not she is a super model.
Some folks panned this film as worst, bad, etc, but they have really not been to some "Horror festivals", like I have, with film entries shot on a cheap video camera, and with no lighting, plot, script, or direction, and just lots of meat counter entrails.