Schizo

"Schizo" or "Playroom" has a close and mystical atmosphere, but it is not the psychological thriller it claims and wants to be. The story twist is too fast moving concerning to what you know about the main character from the beginning of the movie.

Chris, played by Chris McDonnell of "Happy Gilmore", never has the sympathy of the viewer. McDonnell's acting is overdone. The other characters, Marcy (Jamie Rose) and Paul, seem to be only important for being killed by Chris, who turns into a murderer way to fast. But...nice ways to kill the others...!

Wonderful landscape, average story.

5 out of 10

this was okay but not anything special the dialog is often very bad and the characters are very non amiable and very annoying but it has a decent premise and some nice gore effects this had the potential to be a decent little flick but overall it was mediocre and kinda dull too

the directing is average and the killings are passable as is this movie for a lot of reasons why is he killing his friends yes i know because of that imaginary boy he played with as a child forced him to do it but still ya can fight it if ya know what i mean and he is killing them in very gruesome ways and this was just sorta blah overall and is just average worth a watch on a boring day but avoid otherwise ** out of 5

Well, I really can say only good things about this movie: It's a high-quality psychological thriller with few holes in the script, good performances and director's work. I liked the idea of putting the action and characters in an old mysterious monastery in Serbia, where the tragedy have happened.

Archaeologist finds himself drawn to the site where his parents were murdered. There he and his friends are haunted by the ghost of an evil ten year old prince. Acceptable premise and good settings are just not enough to save this flick. The characters and acting are annoying and the script throws out many questions, but never bothers to answer them all. Rated R.

After having seen the gory and over-the-top silly "Dr. Giggles" hundreds of times and loving it more with every viewing, it's rather difficult to accept that Manny Coto's debut film "Playroom" is such an ambitious and serious-minded psycho thriller. I surely wasn't expecting to see an attempt for intellectual horror, set in Eastern Europe and focusing on topics like archeology and child-psychology, so "Dr. Giggles"-fans beware!! It's not even an admirable attempt, as the screenplay is very uninteresting, tedious and a total bunch of nonsense. An obtrusive reporter convinces his girlfriend-editor to travel to Yugoslavia, more particularly to an ancient abbey where he and his archaeologist-father searched for the tomb of a fella named Ilok. After a couple of days of digging with no results, Chris goes completely nuts, has visions of his former imaginary childhood friend and kills the rest of the expedition crew. Big deal! "Playroom" is boring, mainly because you never care for Chris or his bad case of split personality syndrome. This is only the first time I see Christopher MacDonald in a lead role (he usually plays supportive characters) and he already fails to convince us of his acting capabilities. There's absolutely no tension, although Coto seemly tried hard to create some, and the supportive characters are all insufferable. Well, except for the great Vincent Schiavelli but his role is regretfully brief. There also is an irritating lack of gore and there seemly weren't enough budgets to buy a couple of extra light bulbs, as entire sequences are filmed in the dark. One final piece of advise for young scriptwriters: there's NOTHING even remotely scary about kids' imaginary friends! Especially not if these imaginary friends are ordinary looking kids as well.