Terapia diabólica

I have just finished watching the most excruciating film of my entire life. Hellborn has the most infeasible plot, the most ridiculous setting and some actors so wooden that Pinocchio would flit across the screen not look out of place. There is one name on the billing for this film that should let you know what to expect (and I wish I had recognised that at the time) "Tracy Scoggins". When a bit part actress from Lois and Clark turns up in a principle role you know your film is in trouble. Why the director didn't cut his losses and replace all the actors with The Muppets is beyond me!! This movie eclipses every bad movie I have ever witnessed (and I've seen Slap her She's French!!)

I've seen some very terrible horror movies in my time, and while this isn't the worst of the bunch, it's certainly in the lower half. The script starts off OK. A young doctor goes to a hospital as an intern, hoping it will vault him to a better job for him and his future wife. Cute huh? The movie then heads straight into the toilet when you realize that something is killing patients. Turns out that there's a demon on the basement that's harvesting people's souls. It's the job of the 1 doctor, 1 nurse, and 1 security guard in the entire hospital staff to drag this mental patient downstairs, do a ritual that pretty much just involves cutting the tongue out, and then allowing the haunted house prop of a demon to come out and steal his soul through the magic of cheesy special effects. At this point the movie gets so ridiculously stupid, I was begging for it to be over. There was still an hour to go. It looked like a half an hour "Tales From the Crypt" episode that somehow got stretched into an hour and a half crap-fest. From Tiny Lister doing his best John Coffey (The Green Mile) impersonation to Tracy Scoggins playing the stereotypical frigid Nurse Ratchet, this movie fails in every possible level. I gave this 2 stars for only TWO reason. 1) His fiancé is pretty hot, she eased the pain a little towards the end and 2) The movie actually looks OK, a lot better than the current trend of horror movies being made with wal-mart quality home cameras.

In the end, avoid this turd even if you have the Blockbuster movie pass (which I do, and I still felt cheated). As a bonus drinking game, you and your buddies take a shot every time Matt Stasi (Dr. James Bishop) shakes his head while talking. You'll be drunk 15 minutes into the movie.

This is the Halloween season, and I like to watch horror movies when I can. Sometimes I like to watch movies I haven't seen before, or even heard of, so "Hellborn/Asylum of the Damned" fell into that category.

It cost me seventy cents on VHS at a thrift store and made me lament that the money could have been better spent on a snack out of the machine at work, or a can of Dr. Pepper. Like one of the other reviewers said, the movie could make a good basis for a drinking game, where you take a shot or a swig every time "Resident Bishop" shakes his head while he's delivering a line. And yes, drunk 15 minutes into the movie.

The production team gave away the scary character in the opening scene of the movie. He looked like someone wearing a cheap discount store Halloween costume. It might have worked better had they obscured him with shadows and quick cuts, then revealed him in the second half. Then I might have watched more than half of the movie!

Forgive me for failing to get the character and actor names before starting this review but the only decent performance came from the guy playing the Superintendent Doctor. He was coherent but creepy with his speech patterns and piercing eyes and I felt sad for him that he didn't have a better movie to work in.

Two thumbs way down.

I just watched this movie. In one word: sucky! The story is bad, the acting is, if possible, even worse. The movie has one or two nice moments, but thats it and having those two small good moments, doesn't make up for anything in between, before or after those moments. A montrocity of a movie, not even worth watching on tv...

This movie seemed like it was going to be better than it ended up being. The cinematography is good, the acting seemed solid, the dialogue wasn't too stiff... but then about twenty minutes in there's this long scene with a Doctor who you know is actually a patient at the asylum pretending to be a Doctor - and it just goes south from there.

On top of that, the demon is about the silliest looking hellspawn since the Godzilla-looking thing in Curse of the Demon. There's also some odd demon worshippers who wear masks that look like the exploding teens from the beginning of Logan's Run.

In the end, the cinematography couldn't save this movie. Despite some pretty solid performances by the actors, the story just doesn't go anywhere. I think "Hellbored" would have been a better title for this.