Dark Asylum

I rented this as a "throw away", just something to watch. Surprisingly, it wasn't bad. No, it wasn't Jason or Freddy but it kept the pace. Larry Drake made a good psycho and Judd Nelson did well as the "janitor". It has potential to be developed into a better movie if it were remade. Remember "Red Dragon" was a B movie in the 80's before it caught on and remade well.

I recommend it as one of the better B movie thrillers.

When the serial killer The Trasher (Larry Drake) is accidentally captured by the police, he is sent to a deactivated asylum for psychological evaluation. The psychiatrist Maggie (Paulina Porizkova) is called for the evaluation, but The Trasher escapes from the safety room, and stays prisoned in the place, locked in a wing of the old building with Maggie and Quitz (Judd Nelson), a patient that works as janitor. The Trasher tries to escape before the arrival of the FBI agents in charge of transferring him to a prison, and Maggie and Quitz fight for survival, in a game of cat and mouse.

"Dark Asylum" is horrible, indeed a piece of crap. The story is ridiculous, and the character of Maggie is one of the most imbeciles I have ever seen on the screen. Only a top fashion model, who believes that can act, to accept such a ridiculous role. The scenes where the lunatic that works as janitor advises her to have common sense is one of the saddest, in the ridiculous sense, that I have ever seen. The lines are outrageously silly and the behavior of Maggie, as a psychiatrist, is unbelievable. This film is a complete waste of priceless time and money. I do not understand how a user can recommend this crap, and repeat the review and the advice many times, misleading other readers (like me). My vote is two.

Title (Brazil): "Hospício Maldito" ("Damned Asylum")

Okay, I didn't expect much from this movie. No big names, except for Larry Drake (when was the last time he was in something decent?), and Pauline Porizkova (Ric Ocasek's SO). Your typical idiot plot (everybody acts like an idiot otherwise the movie would be over in about 5 minutes), your unstoppable loonie, your designated victims. Refreshing change in that we didn't have to listen to the loonie babble endlessly. However, the big oddity is the implicit message: sane people are stupid, ineffectual, weak, and incompetent. Crazies, on the other hand, are cunning, tough, brutally strong, and endure gunshots with only minor annoyance. This is seen not only in our unstoppable villain, but also in the sympathetic, supportive nutcase who aids our heroine. It is even seen (albeit briefly) in our heroine herself, who has her sanity repeatedly questioned when she starts behaving with some sense of self-preservation. Add in the coffee-swilling, donut scarfing cops and you have 90 minutes of stupidity you won't want to watch sober.

This movie had a lot going for it to start out with. Excellent setting of mood during the credits and a buildup of the main character. But it loses its way. It is obvious that Larry Drake can make a great bad guy (something every movie like this needs) but the screenplay ruins the role for him once the action starts. Before that he is actually a thoughtful, resourceful operator who works by intellect as well as brute strength. By the end he is just a brute and it turns out out that there is nothing there. You're expected to believe that he somehow takes out an entire swat team single handedly. And you never get to find out what his motivation was in all this.

This is the class of movie where every active character routinely does the worst possible thing for themselves. The police (except for the opening part) seem to know nothing about police procedure. Everyone -- even the bad guy! -- gratuitously maximizes the danger to themselves. It is too obvious.

They even blew Maggie's (Paulina Porizkova) "Ripley" moment, where she saddles up with cast aside hardware and wades back in to take on the bad guy because all the people who are supposed to be doing it are too stupid to do it.

And I thought Judd Nelson's career was in better shape than this. What is he doing taking on jobs like this? Maybe he owed someone a favor. His character at one point looks like it could be interesting, then fades like everything else in this movie.

Oh, well.

Well what can u say abt this movie?. Bad acting, predictable story, same crap as the other "Horror movies from 1990-2000". The killer looks like a big pig and isnt that scary. He got shot several times without any kind of bad injury(ohh yes he sew himself up). I really dont like this movie. If u wanna see real horror movies then i suggest u check the 70´s horror movies out. This one u can throw in the trashcan.