10 Days in a Madhouse

Having never written a review of a movie on IMDb before I was motivated due to two rather unusual ones from profiles only ever reviewing this movie. . . . .and giving a bad review. So, while it does betray its roots as a low budget movie the story was indeed pretty good. Definitely worth watching through to the end as the topic will certainly make you question what you believe about institutions for mental health.

Wonderful storyline, but woefully underwhelming from an acting and screenplay/dialogue standpoint. Watching the "actors" converse in this movie was painful at times and reminds one of a film school project more than a serious picture. I've always trusted IMDb to be a good judge of films to watch. My personal experience has been that movies rated 6 or higher are typically very good movies so long as the content is to your tastes. That has changed for me over the past year or so though. I will take future IMDb ratings with a grain of salt.

I had read articles about this movie saying the most amazing things. That this was Christopher Lambert's best part in ten years and that lead actress playing Nellie Bly was being praised for her performance by Hollywood insiders. But I couldn't understand why all the user reviews I was seeing were that the film was awful. After seeing the movie I did a little bit more research and realized the articles are written by the producers themselves and contain no factual information whatsoever. The movie is horrendous. The lead actress playing Nellie is just not a good actor. She flares her nose when she's supposed to be angry and widens her eyes when she's supposed to be scared. Christopher Lambert wanders around the movie with not much to do and looking amused that he's the only known actor in the film. The rest of the cast, complete unknowns, do the best with what they're given as the script's dialogue is incredibly cheesy and unrealistic. But a good number of them give cringe-inducing results. The movie itself is a hot mess. Some shots look very professional. Others look as if someone whipped out their iphone and started filming. Even an iphone might've produced better results. About 80% of the movie looked to be shot in real locations. The other 20% is flatly in front of green screen. And it's not well-done green screen as it looks like each part of the film was pieced together little by little until something coherent came together. Don't waste your money on this garbage.

This movie could have been fantastic. Unfortunately for production, bad direction and horrible acting made a good story into a horrible movie. So disappointing. Didn't even recognize Kelly Lebrock as she has had so much plastic surgery.

I'm not really sure how to rate this film, but feel compelled to write a review, for no other reason than to warn people what they are about to see. The plot is interesting, but the movie feels like a high-school play. While it is a very important and amazing story that needed to be told, the production is abysmal. Only a 12 million dollar budget? OK, but, better acting alone would've made all the difference. The 10 star ratings are misleading; either fake, or written by Lifetime Movie lovers. And what was with the Kelly LeBrock cameo?? Weird. (and bad) I agree with another reviewer who suggested you read the book. I plan to do that, as soon as I get the imagery from this rubbish out of my head.