Patient Seven

The movie starts out like a cool story: we have a big shot doctor who is tackling every patient in this run-down mental institution. We have good actors, some more known than others, but even the lesser known actors do a good job here. The visuals and SFX are very good. The colors, lights, grading, sound effects, special effects, gore. It's all there. So why the 4/10 score?

The movie lacks everything else. It lacks the SSS: Sense, substance and scares.

This review is chaotic, I know, but still not as chaotic and rushed as this film was. The movie doesn't know if it wants to be a comedy, horror, sci-fi, drama. It just goes in circles and never seems to fit anywhere.

I honestly wanted it to end halfway through, but once it ended I was even more like "seriously.....?" Nope. That's not how you end a (boring) movie.

Don't watch it. Just let it be.

If you want scares, turn off the lights, put your headphones on and rent The Babadook.

Be ready to sit through 7 different stories all about monsters and the unnatural. I only liked story 4 but even that one was hard to hear due to the strong accent and no captions. I mean , if nothing else is on then I would watch this but it would not be my first pick. You might get what you want as far as being entertained elsewhere.

And why wouldn't I? Sure, it wasn't the most original out there, and it went the multiple story type, but hey, it was well executed, decent effect and quite lovely actors.

Ironside is one of the oldies actors I really appreciate and apparently the man still has it, can perform just right, make you believe, if you give him a decent enough script he will play his part just right. The plot itself is good, I loved the way the stories were told, I think some of the monsters looked quite nicely and some tension made its appearance here and there.

Patient Seven will most likely remain an unknown horror, but those of you which will find it, go for it, it's far better than most productions nowadays, and it surely made the best of its budget. I for one will recommend it!

Cheers!

Patient Seven has great actors, a good score and interesting dialogue. It delivers seven horror short stories that are never boring.

Unfortunately the film makers never went through the trouble of connecting those stories, offering closure to each of the patients, or even giving us a proper ending.

Instead of reusing horror elements throughout the various plots, (same monsters, same crimes) they could have used the content to paint a bigger picture.

In all, an opportunity wasted.

I am giving "Patient Seven" 5 out of 10 stars.

Thanks. (10 lines yay, sometimes there just isn't more to say)

Something I really appreciate in a film is a clever title. 'Patient Seven' has that, and for multiple reasons, but the biggest one being that it makes you crave the knowledge of who the seventh patient is and what makes them worthy of having the film named after them. The film is presented with seven stories and then the central film tying them all together. Here are my brief thoughts on each of the segments.

Segment 1: A bad way to start the film. Bland and unimaginative.

Segment 2: Probably my favourite segment of them film. Smart, funny and a wee twist to top it off.

Segment 3: Another boring segment with very little going for it. Not sure how it made the cut. More filler than anything else.

Segment 4: I'm from New Zealand and I can tell you that patient four's accent was nothing like that which we have here. The segment itself though the accents were much better (and even featured real New Zealand money which impressed me). Not a great segment, but far from the worst. Very much middle of the road.

Segment 5: Probably the second best segment. A little drawn out but has a nice ending to go out with a bang.

Segment 6: Yuck. Nothing to like about this one.

Segment 7: Would have liked this one to be better. It should have been, but again it just ran out of steam.

The best part of the movie though is the story tying all of this together. That's where the real fun is to be had. Michael Ironside does a great job playing the creepy main character and he has more than enough to work with in the script. The film finishes very strongly and that is always a good thing for a movie to do. Leave the audience with a good taste in their mouth.