MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Jemima It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Wyatt There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

zkonedog It is very, very rare that I give a film one out of ten stars. I'm usually pretty picky when it comes to which movies I watch, and as such I'm usually always able to find a kernel of something (plot, idea, acting, effects, music, etc.) to enjoy. Sadly, watching "Asylum" provided me none of those things, and ended up being the worst film I've seen in quite some time.For a basic plot summary, "Asylum" focuses on the character of Madison (Sarah Roemer), who goes off to college at the same place her brother took his own life (mental illness runs in the family). Once in her dorm, Madison does some of the typical freshman orientation bonding as befitting a new student...but also discovers that the grounds may be haunted by ghost of The Doctor (Mark Rolston), who years early ran an insane asylum on the premises.The main problem with "Asylum" is that it is little more than a combination of every horror movie cliché you've ever seen in your life. Dimly lit corridors, insane asylum lore, ghosts, characters that spew cardboard backstory to try to give their deaths significance/meaning...this one has them all. None of these approaches work, of course, as they are only wallpaper for the fact that the film has perhaps the most embarrassing "plot" I've ever seen.This brings up the next major problem: I don't think I've ever seen a film do a worse job at creating an interesting plot, developing characters, or dialogue in general. To be completely honest, I thought (while watching) that this must be a student film project or something on the very lowest rungs of film-production. That would be the only way this utter lack of quality could be reconciled in my brain. But, consider this:-"Asylum" was made on a budget of $9 million. -It was distributed by MGM Studios. -Its director (David R. Ellis) has directed other major Hollywood films. -Roemer was likely a big draw (coming off her role in "Suburbia"), and Rolston is an acting veteran. -The credits feature an entire slate of a film team.So, it is pretty clear that this film isn't just a low-independent production or one made by students. This was meant to be a major production that turns into an utter embarrassment. Even those who are up for the cheesiest of B-horror movies will cringe at "Asylum" (we are talking cringe-worthy at the level of Mystery Science Theater 3000 here).As I've mentioned, I hate giving (most) films the bottom-feeding 1 star review, but this one deserves not an ounce more. I knew it was going to be bad after 15 minutes, and only a 90-minute runtime kept me in my seat for the duration. Look literally anywhere else for your suspense/horror fix.

Scott LeBrun Only the most dedicated fans of asylum horror may want to bother with this one. It's not bad enough that it reeks of familiarity throughout, but the writing and direction are genuinely bad, the characters are far from being interesting or original, and director David R. Ellis ("Final Destination 2", "Snakes on a Plane") seems utterly incapable of coming up with some half decent atmosphere for this thing. It just falls flat, right from the start. The acting is uninspired right across the board, which is a shame, since there are two reliable veterans in the cast: Mark Rolston ("Aliens", "The Shawshank Redemption") and Lin Shaye ("There's Something About Mary", "Insidious"), both of whom are wasted, especially Shaye. The story deals with some typical college students assigned to a dorm that, wouldn't you know it, used to be an insane asylum decades previous. Not surprisingly, the doctor who was in charge (Rolston) was a barbarian who had disgusting ideas on how to "cure" troubled kids. So his restless spirit is delighted to be able to victimize these students, each of whom has psychological baggage. The good moments in this movie are few and far between; it does get somewhat more watchable as it goes along, but it never, ever generates any suspense or fright, even as our victims are confronted with images of their worst fears. The dialogue is ridiculous, as are some of the characters; Tommy (Travis Van Winkle, "Friday the 13th" '09) and Rez (Randall Sims) are the worst offenders. Sarah Roemer ("Disturbia") at least has some appeal as the female lead Madison, who witnessed a traumatic incident as a child, experienced another tragedy as a young adult, and who is afraid that she could have inherited the insanity of one of her parents. With not a single thing standing out in this unsatisfying mess, it's extremely forgettable, with a weak and groan-inducing ending to boot. This viewer can be pretty forgiving and not too hard to entertain, so the fact that he couldn't find anything to enjoy about this movie should warn you of just how bad it is. Three out of 10.

tex-42 If you saw the late 90s movie, House on Haunted Hill, this movie will seem oddly familiar. An asylum is run by a doctor/mad man who tortures his patients until they revolt and kill him. As is often the case, the asylum is later turned into a college dorm. However, one wing has yet to be converted and thankfully remains filled with scary asylum stuff and the murderous ghost of the doctor.We then meet our characters, and it's like The Breakfast Club meets Nightmare on Elm Street. Every kids fits a cliché and has a back story that sets up how they will be killed. It will take you about five seconds to figure out who survives. As one would expect, the students are picked off one by one and we end up with our heroes v. the murderous ghost doctor. I won't spoil it for you as to what happens. Suffice it to say, it's completely expected.Asylum isn't a good movie, and its made worse by the fact that it feels like everyone from the writers to the cast just gave up at some point. The horrors here are not original, the storyline feels like someone literally fed a bunch of different horror movies into a typewriter and even the people we are supposed to root for aren't all that interesting. In short, use this film as a way to make yourself appreciate better movies.

Jan Strydom I found ASYLUM sitting on a shelf at the local DVD store, I didn't know a thing about this movie but that hasn't stopped me before, I rented it, took it home, popped it in the player and as the pre-credits rolled I noticed two familiar names, one was that of the producer Ashok Amritaj whose other credits in the horror genre includes a more popular film called TRICK'R'TREAT and the second was David R. Ellis whose credits include FINAL DESTINATION 2 and 4 and CELLULAR, so I reckoned this film should either be interesting or it should really suck since I never heard of it.The film turned out to be good after all, it wasn't something I would tell everyone about, it starts off as a ghost story setting up the mood developing the characters but later it turns more into a slasher and of course you get the usual set of clichés, but on the plus side the characters are of course your typical young teen slasher types but some of them are actually likable (halelluja a slasher with likable characters) it features pretty good cinematography that succeeds in creating atmosphere, it has a pretty cool villain that reminds me a bit of Freddy Kreuger and it doesn't resort to showcasing a bunch of tits and ass to make up for its poor script, although the script isn't that poor but its not that great either.In way after watching this film I also thought if people wanted to know how would A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET be if it was brought out today, I would say just watch this film and I'm mainly saying that because of the villain of the story who preys on his victims fears, Freddy also preys on his victims fears but he does it through their dreams, I might be wrong but that's what I think.