Hospital de la muerte

The friends Emmett (Happy Mahaney), Freddy (Josh Holt), Marie (Nicole Rayburn), Kevin (Jilon Ghai) and his reluctant girlfriend Jessie (Trish Coren) decide to spend the Halloween night in an abandoned hospital. Meanwhile, the younger Allan (Michael Samluk ) meets the old friend of his father Arlo Ray Baines (Dig Wayne) and asks him to help to find his vanished sister Meg (Rachel Melvin) in the same spot. The two groups meet each other in the mental institution section on the haunted third floor and they find that they are trapped in the place. Jessie has visions from the past and discovers that the ghost of Jacob (M. Steven Felty), a former patient that raped a little girl and burned the hospital, is trying to escape possessing their bodies that melt down with his evil spirit.

"Boo" is a messy ghost story, with a confused screenplay and poor development of characters, especially Jessie. This lead character and her relationship with her mad mother are the key point of the story, but their stories are awfully disclosed. Further, the character Kevin acts like an annoying moron. The group using an old elevator that works in an abandoned building is ridiculous. However, I startled in some moments with the eerie atmosphere. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Hospital Maldito" ("Damned Hospital")

Well, Sci Fi channel was "treating" viewers to an all day long horror fest. BOO was the only one I diddnt recognize so I decided to give it a shot. Man was that a mistake.

This movie was so amateur on so many levels where do I start?

First off this movie was not even remotely frightening. You would actually be amazed at exactly how many times this movie manages to not scare you. The special effects are third rate. Which actually brings me to another point, in a HORROR movie exactly how do you manage to get the color of blood wrong? I mean isn't that the very FIRST thing you get right? Give me a bottle of corn syrup and red food coloring and I promise I could make more realistic blood in 10 seconds.

There are exactly 2 kinds of blood in this film. Jello like (yes jello like, chunky, shiny, and see through), and syrupy and off color, almost orange...like buffalo wing sauce. Frightening indeed!

Next is the acting, or an odd lack thereof. I mean seriously this was cue card reading caliber. No chemistry, no delivery. There have been infomercials and video game voice recording with more authenticity. Not to mention how miscast some of the parts were (like the long haired meterosexual wimpy pretty boy cop? HUH???).

Finally the special effects. Lemme break em down. The most impressive was possibly the skinless dog. Mildly cool (yet done with mediocre puppetteering. I mean I believe its head was the only thing that moved.) Ghosts which were merely actors with 5 dollar white face paint (seriously), and finally the weak exploding corpses. You see when any baddie is shot, even with a small 22 handgun they merely explode in a very low budget 70's movie way (to apparently save some cash with their 100 dollar special effects budget. I mean even the girl who gets shot in the heads head wound is apparently just a red painted on dot. My god, I could buy a gunshot wound makeup pack for like 3 dollars.

Anyway nothing in this movie is compelling or even mildly frightening. I must admit I had to leave with 7 mins. left in the movie so maybe something spectacular and deeply frightening happened at that point but I doubt it. Terrible, and frankly boring movie. Use only for MST3K treatment.

You can't kill what's already dead Sounds like a cliché? It is. This is a movie that only it's mother could love, still for horror fans this has some campy entertainment value, the setting is a dark abandoned hospital, and who doesn't like that? The acting is hilarious and and it's a hailstorm of horror clichés, seriously, you could make a drinking game out of it. It really get's quite funny after a while. But then we have the dog. My god what was that?? ! truly the stuff of nightmares! Some special effects are actually quite good and gory but not used much, surprisingly maybe. Still It does drag on a bit so be sure to have your chosen beverage ready when you watch this.

SCHLOCK would have been a better title for this absurd excursion into a poor excuse for a fright flick.

Nothing redeems it. Not the story, the sub-par acting from a mostly teen cast, the witless dialog, the tired old explanation for all the goings on, and the complete lack of logic.

Whenever things get dull, another fright scene with someone gurgling on blood or turning into a gooey monster of decomposing flesh, is supposed to provide the kind of shock appeal to target a young audience.

Let's hope the kids today are a bit more discriminating in their taste for horror. This one is below the mark all the way.

The only redeeming feature is the sleazy look of the abandoned hospital grounds. Enough to make your skin crawl, disgustingly dirty, rundown and evil looking.

But the story and the characters are an insult to anyone's intelligence, poorly acted and directed to make this a complete waste of time. A writer like Stephen King could have done something with the basic idea--but it's too late now.

I hate using back-handed, "well it's better than the worst" compliments but, having seen my share of low budget horror movies of late, I must say that Boo! is certainly a cut above most of them.

It's well shot, creating an atmospheric and eerie feeling not generally found in the genre today. The effects are well done. The plot itself is solid and there are some clever laugh out loud moments.

On the downside, the pace drags at times and some of the dialog is weak in spots but not too much to be distracting. Also, there are a couple horror movie, "why the Hell are they doing that?" logic issues.

The biggest distraction came with some of the casting. Most of the actors are capable although not great, but I felt one of the main characters was weak. On the plus side, the villain is terrific. (Sorry about mixing my tenses)

Horror movies are a crap-shoot, usually more crap than anything else. But if you're looking for something better than most, I would recommend Boo! It's performance will make me keep an eye out for other Graveyard Filmworks productions.