Asylum of Darkness

After awakening in a mental asylum, a patient plans his escape to freedom and manages to successfully enter modern society only for his constant visions and psychological problems to continually manifest themselves in order to drag him back to the asylum and forces him to find out why.

For the most part, this one wasn't all that bad of an effort. One of the strongest aspects here is the fact that this one generates a really impressive and somewhat disorienting atmosphere that's really engaging and appealing. The fact that majority of the first half concerns the ability to make it nearly impossible to tell what's going on here, as the atmosphere found within this section of whether or not he's really going through the insanity of the situation with his weird visions of people with distorted faces following his dreams gives the film quite an odd start. As well, the rather odd manner in which this is jokingly referred to as a normal situation by the staff despite the obvious discomfort of the visions makes for a chilling setup here. The way in which he continually experiences the strange faceless beings and creatures coming after him, from the hallucinatory chase in the house, his encounter in the cemetery or the continued visions he has with the strange creatures while being around his wife which gives this some solid work to build off of. The second half gets the creatures to interact with him a little more vigorously, letting the hospital encounter, a stellar hallucination sequence where he cuts up the members of a boardroom meeting as well as the finale in the underground bunker that resolves this nicely all giving it a solid amount of gore and solid creature make-up for the different demonic creatures here. However, none of these factors can overcome the fact that there's just no reason for anything that happens here. It just goes from one seemingly unconnected sequence to another that all supposedly feature his deteriorating mental state yet nothing is really done about making sure it all relates to anything. The fact that he's insane and supposedly living a different person's life is no excuse for why nothing here makes sense, why it goes from him in the asylum to suddenly now a husband and living with the wife despite being two different people as none of this is explained. The chance to explain it all never comes as to why they believe he's the dead person and is able to suddenly become a different person as the flimsy nature it occurs here is begging for more of an explanation yet it never occurs. Likewise, the fact that the film is so bland and lifeless doesn't really do it many favors either, taking far too long to get the switch going and featuring way too much downtime to really be of much interest. The endless scenes of him at the book-signing, trying to appeal to his wife's good side to get her to trust him following the behavior switch and in general just going around trying to uncover his true identity make this one so dreary and dull that it sloughs along at a bland clip, and with a nearly two-hour running time it really could've been put to far better use moving the pace of this one along. These two issues here are in fact so crippling that they manage to overcome much of what good this film accomplishes.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

The concept/idea was interesting but really stretched out being a 2 hour movie, acting is pretty bad and some of the scenes are ridiculous- maybe a once off watch but definitely wouldn't watch again and would not recommend

Production quality is not great, but give it a chance. It's very odd, a bit twisted, but worth the watch.

I haven't seen a film this strange in a while and appreciate it's attempting to be different. Does it succeed as a good movie though? Depends on what your looking for. Positives: the lead performances were all convincing for a low budget genre title. Nick Baldasare had the arduous task of portraying a person on the edge of sanity. His performance could have warped into a lot of cliché "crazy" type acting, but he made it believable. Richard Hatch also delivers the goods in one of his final roles. I thought the look of the film was also a plus and the effects, while old school, had a nice retro feel that added to the fun. The only negative was the film's length. I thought it could have been cut by 20 minutes and been a little better experience. All in all, you will like this movie if you don't need details and plot points spoon-fed to you. Expect the unexpected and enjoy!

A murderer (Nick Baldasare), who has been assigned to a mental institution after being declared "not guilty by reason of insanity," escapes the state hospital and assumes the identity of another man. Curiously, the man's wife accepts him (Amanda Howell) and the hallucinatory story proceeds from there.

"Asylum of Darkness" (2013) was originally called "Season of Darkness" when it was screened at a festival, but the distributor adjusted the title for its 2017 release. It was written, scored and directed by Jay Woelfel for $200,000, shot in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio. Despite the micro-budget, it's artistic in its depiction of reality from the delusional mind of an insane person. The old school practical effects are mostly effective, but sometimes cartoonish and goofy.

It's technically superior to Woelfel's spare-change budgeted "Ghost Story" (2004); and the story is more compelling compared to his "Closed for the Season" (2010). Unfortunately, it's overlong and Tiffany Shepis' role is too small; she should've played the wife IMHO.

However, if you like artsy indies and are patient, you'll probably find something to appreciate. It's too puzzling for my tastes, but at least it's different.

Richard Hatch and Tim Thomerson appear in peripheral roles. It runs 1 hours, 57 minutes.

GRADE: C.