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Asylum
R1 - America - Lions Gate Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (10th June 2015). |
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The Film
 When communication is lost with two first responders called to an New Orleans asylum during a riot, an eight person riot squad unit – lead by Sergeant Sharp (Bruce Payne) and accompanied by hostage negotiator Kevin McGahey (Stephen Rea) – infiltrate the building and quickly themselves locked in when their communication with the command center is cut off (which also includes control of the front gates). The team, armed with non-lethal weapons, find evidence of a full-scale bloodbath inside the building but no bodies. Dodging attacks from inmates and staff alike who seem to possess superhuman strength, the unit split up into three teams: Sharp, McGahey, and rookie Holloway (Caroline Ford) seek the generator to restore power, Phillips (Edward Joe Scargill), Gilmartin (Curtis Nordstrom), and Powell (Steve Toussaint) search for the control room to communicate with the command center – itself encountering odd and deadly interference – since their own radios do not respond, and Lim (Jason Wong), DiMarino (Iana Kuzova), and Barnett (Joe Montana) search for the first responders. As the groups separately begin to fall victim to attacks from the inmates, Sharp and Holloway suspect an experimental drug regimen gone wrong while McGahey suspects demonic possession, and that his own brother Richard (Hristo Shopov) – a priest turned Satanic ritual murderer who he has only just discovered is an inmate in the asylum – is the root of the evil. That is apparently what Asylum is supposed to be about, but one of the producers reportedly took the script by Chris Mancini to Bulgaria before tossing it out the window and returning with a mess of unfinished and missing scenes (some with title cards in place with the scene number and others illustrated with storyboard pages), performances with thick and slipping accents from local actors (and delivery that would make redubbing difficult) - particularly in the case of Shopov Velizar Binev who plays the sergeant at the command center - uncomposited greenscreen shots, and notations for added visual effects that presumably the filmmakers expected would just be painted over the live action. Since the film had been pre-sold to LionsGate as part of the "After Dark Originals" series, After Dark had to finish the film but apparently lacked the funds to complete it, so Mancini was brought in to "finish" the film by writing and directing (direction is co-credited to him and Todor Chapkanov) wraparound and interstitial segments telling the story of how money-minded VP of Beyond Midnight Productions decides just after New Orleans pre-production on the titular film is completed to move the production to Bulvania to the consternation of the film's line producer (who subsequently discovers six weeks into production that the producer left the script back in the states and is making it up as they go along). The film opens with the usual found footage text about an ill-fated group (here filmmakers) deciding to go to an unfamiliar location, but the footage that comes back is horrifying in the sense that the two editors reviewing it deem it "unwatchable." They then spend the hour plus making fun of everything onscreen (the film is padded to feature length by cutaways to the farcical production meetings and the awkward flirtations between the editor and the line producer (Mancini is now credited with "comedy screenplay" for the wraparounds and Tex Wall for the "horror screenplay"). Whether the stories about the film are true or not, Asylum is an absolute mess made all the more unwatchable by the sub-MSTK3000 commentary. While the film, if finished properly, seems as though it would have been another run-of-the-mill "After Dark" horror film, it might have at least made for a decent time waster (although Mancini probably had not intended that either) rather than a frustrating slog. Nevertheless, the film as it turned out does function as sort of a dig at the entire low budget filmic tradition - particularly genre film – of filming where tax breaks or exchange rates are most favorable (in terms of Eastern Europe, it was Hungary in the eighties, Romania in the nineties and early 2000s, and now Bulgaria) which usually afforded striking locations and atmospheric landscapes (which rarely convinced when the setting was supposed to be American), and skilled craftspersons (usually coming from the countries' rich theatrical and respectable if sometimes relatively technically primitive cinematic traditions) on the one hand, and local talent that had to be redubbed and not always ideal shooting circumstances or accommodations on the other. One finishes the film feeling extremely sorry for Rea – and have no doubt it is Rea even within the film itself as the commentators refer to him as the "The Crying Game guy"– while the other actors should be thankful that this one will likely not achieve any kind of cult status and hopefully be the least seen of the "After Dark Originals" series (and hopefully not the first film people think of when the title Asylum is uttered).  
Video
While the missing scene and effects notations were left in place (as well as the greenscreen shots), the film-within-a-film does seem to have been otherwise color corrected for consistency while the wraparounds and interstitial segments have a different, flatter, shot-on-the-quick look. The interlaced, anamorphic widescreen (the aspect ratio switches back and forth between 2.35:1 and 1.78:1) encode on LionsGate's single-layer DVD looks as sufficient as the film allows in SD (presumably the included download code leads to an HD version, but why bother).  
Audio
The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio at least seems to have been finished, with the sound effects and voice sweetening in place for the film-within-a-film (although the voiced over comments from the two editors have more of an audio commentary-like loudness during the film and not the more naturalistic levels heard in the interstitial sequences in which they are onscreen). Optional English SDH subtitles are available as well as Spanish ones and English closed-captioning; however, they give preference to the "commentary" rather than the film dialogue when they overlap.  
Extras
Mercifully, there are no extras besides the start-up trailers (also available from the "Previews" option on the main menu).  
Overall
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