Paranormal Asylum

I was warned - but I still watched it.

Plot ruined by terrible acting, terrible effects, terrible dialogue and character interactions. They could have foregone the badly animated effects, particularly the ghost on the train track which looked like the Pilsbury Dough Man without a head, and spent it on better actors. Having a ghost at every turn could be replaced perhaps with long pauses where the viewer's imagination creates a sense of something. The two main characters, film-makers, had no discernible relationship as friends, the one with darker hair was just angry all the time and completely ignoring the fact that his friend had seen ghosts even though he was setting up cameras to find ghosts. There are other emotions in life. Perhaps they should have been two less emotional college friends studying film. The taller one was also not a very good film-maker anyway as he didn't seem to film anything.

The camera filter was also odd, sort of dark-edged, not either good quality and saturated or just hand-held home camera. The sound was also strange as if it had been dubbed, the position of the source didn't seem to match where people were standing sometimes.

I also think that the makeup artist hired to turn the main female character into an angry spirit thought that she was preparing Marilyn Manson for a gig.

If I ever invent a time machine I want to go back to 2 hours ago when I rented this movie so I can stop myself.

Worst acting I have EVER seen, worst effects, worst suspense, worst script. WOW.

Let's start with the continuity. I felt like I was watching those "real" ghost videos on youtube (that teenagers make) all stuck together randomly.

Misc stuff: There is no character development, no emotion, no story line. 1. The dude watching folks get killed doesn't call the cops or even tell the people he is on the phone with about what he just saw. 2. The men are chasing girlfriend as she slides down the hall. The camera stays on them and they just quit running. Then we find girlfriend in another room. How did she get there and why didn't the guys chase her into it? 3. Why did this dude record about 3-4 ghosts and never check his camera to see if what he thinks he saw was there? I don't think he was actually ever recording.

Every time Mediterranean guy tells white guy (I honestly couldn't be bothered to learn or even look up their character names) random bits of hate like "you just want to sleep with her" or "why is a girl like her dating me!!!" I kept asking myself why these two guys are even friends. No emotional connect to each other. Much less with me.

Audio: It was about half way through the movie that I finally understood this wasn't a foreign film badly dubbed. The audio matched the lips and this film was made in the US. It just had flat and emotionless audio to go along with the acting. I think Mediterranean guy may have actually dubbed his whole performance in post processing which is why, even when he is freaking out, he sounds like he is sitting in a warehouse watching this film instead of acting in it.

This entire thing reeks of college course credit that accidentally got made into a feature film. wow... just wow.

Acting: Every performance was punchable and cringeworthy but none more than the guy who tested the drug. I couldn't tell if he was trying to crank up the flamboyant meter or if he was just "acting at me" but someone needs to dial him back down by about half.

Plot: I'm just going to say this about my suspicions for the origin of the plot. I picture two drunk guys around a camp fire with one saying "we should make a movie about typhoid mary" and the other saying "like.. uh. yeah. And she should be a ghost or whatever". They work for 1 hour and the script is done.

Ps. it is obvious the guy who rated it high is brothers with the director or something. Or maybe he saw a different film.

First sign this movie is going to be terrible... two guys go out to an old ruined home in the woods, one guy sees an old lady, the first guy says, why are you freaking out about old ladies? Second guy doesn't point out the fact that she doesn't exist? lol... The writing is just that bad... and that's the very first scene, so I have my trusty popcorn and my kitty cat, but it looks like this one is going to be really bad.

I love horror films, paranormal films that take place in an asylum so I gave it a shot, I don't mind independent movies, amateur actors, if the story is really good.

I was interested in the story being told here, but the problems are many.

The script is not very well written, the scenes are poorly utilized, such as when a guy goes to see archives, he doesn't seem to find anything and the whole scene comes off as worthless, adding no depth or tension or reason to the film.

Something begins to happen but then just cuts and it's over and no one's that impressed or surprised, which makes no sense.

Poorly written characters throughout.

No one has any chemistry, the friendship, the girlfriend? No one has any believable connection or emotion to the relationships they're supposed to be portraying... Laura Gilreath and Aaron Mathias do an alright job with the maddeningly bad script and direction.

I love when the half brother is giving Andy sh*t about borrowing his boat, and then when we finally see the boat it's a pretty cheap boat with cheap plastic back yard chairs tied together.

There's some decent story twists that I enjoyed, such as Mary finding him and getting taken back to the hospital and Aaron pursuing, showing you the movie really could have been better if they had just kept the story more human and not tried to be so "smart" with the dialog that really hurt the film.

1/10

While Paranormal Asylum benefits from a wonderful concept, that of searching for the true story of Typhoid Mary, it suffers from three major problems.

1 - a ridiculous back story of the film maker trying to get out from under his girlfriend's family.

2 - filming quality that, while the coloring is lovely, it looks either like a college graduation film or a commercial for local TV.

3 - terrible acting. Across the board, terrible acting. No one in this film was even Disney level quality. While good looking and in great shape, while they had nice hair even, the range of their dramatic skills covered the gamut from a to b.

On the positive side - when the film sticks to the found footage genre (which I love!) it is above average. Unfortunately, it only uses found footage techniques for about 15-20 minutes total. This is unfortunate, because the tricks used in those scenes are excellent.

Ultimately, I was left dissatisfied with the movie, knowing that it could have been so much more which is a shame, because I enjoy most found footage movies. I give it a 3 for the few minutes of found footage techniques and the twists employed therein.

Words cannot express how terrible this movie was. I have it ranked as the second worst movie I have ever seen (Dracula 3000 being the worst) Some of the positives on this movie - Michelle had nice white teeth, the men had nicely brushed hair, and the story of Typhoid Mary of course has potential. I think the biggest problem with this film (as everyone else has pointed out) is that there was no chemistry at all, and all the interactions seemed forced and very unbelievable. You can fault the terrible acting, the struggle to remember their lines, or the hokey side stories. Any scene with struggling in it ... wow ... bad doesn't do justice. All in all - the biggest issue was everything. To quote my wife - "Why is this movie lasting so long?" (it runs 89 mins) We watched this for *free* on Netflix, and still felt ripped off (you can fault us for not turning it off I guess)

If you are tempted to watch this film ... don't. Grab a camera, some friends, heck - even grab a few drinks, and make your own version, it will be better than this!