Sanatorium
(2013/An After Dark Original/Lionsgate DVD)
Picture:
B Sound: B Extras: D Film: C-
You
Belong To Them Now.
Are
you a fan of found footage movies? Like them or not, here's another
one for you. Sanatorium
takes us out to the Hillcrest Sanatorium, where the television series
Ghost Trackers has come in search of exactly what the series' name
suggests. While going to a sanatorium is generally a pretty safe bet
in terms of finding ghosts - lots of unhappy people died unhappy
deaths on the premises, which commonly suggests restless spirits
roaming about.
But
the Hillcrest Sanatorium is unlike anything the group has encountered
before, as the Hillcrest Sanatorium was home to Richard Howell, a man
who killed three children before hanging himself on New Year's Eve
1955. So when Ghost Trackers arrives on the scene, they are in for a
jackpot of proof of the paranormal but will they survive the episode?
The
film has all the making of the usual found footage lore. A pregnant
girlfriend is announced in the first act where all of the main crew
of idiots (I mean main characters) are in their ordinary world where
everything seems normal... but don't forget that someone must tell
the illusive protagonist behind the camera to turn it off. Once they
get to the sanatorium, things get more intense as the night vision
mode comes on and the ghosts come out to play.
For
anyone that has sat through shows like Ghost Hunters, this film you
will find is a pretty good emulation of what that show is like (or
what they want it to be like) only of course you don't see characters
getting killed on screen. The film has some creepy moments, but all
in all is on the same level slightly below Paramormal
Activity
and is nothing to really write home about. The ending act is pretty
cool where one of the main female characters gets possessed and
slaughtered by a ghastly entity... but you have to sit through a lot
of cliches to get to that point.
Picture
and sound on the disc are average for the DVD format featuring a
standard definition transfer in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen and a
lossy English 5.1 Dolby Digital sound mix.
No
Extras on this release except a preview of other films available from
Lionsgate.
-
James Harland Lockhart V
www.facebook.com/jhl5films
