Only the most dedicated fans of asylum horror may want to bother with this one. It's not bad enough that it reeks of familiarity throughout, but the writing and direction are genuinely bad, the characters are far from being interesting or original, and director David R. Ellis ("Final Destination 2", "Snakes on a Plane") seems utterly incapable of coming up with some half decent atmosphere for this thing. It just falls flat, right from the start. The acting is uninspired right across the board, which is a shame, since there are two reliable veterans in the cast: Mark Rolston ("Aliens", "The Shawshank Redemption") and Lin Shaye ("There's Something About Mary", "Insidious"), both of whom are wasted, especially Shaye. The story deals with some typical college students assigned to a dorm that, wouldn't you know it, used to be an insane asylum decades previous. Not surprisingly, the doctor who was in charge (Rolston) was a barbarian who had disgusting ideas on how to "cure" troubled kids. So his restless spirit is delighted to be able to victimize these students, each of whom has psychological baggage. The good moments in this movie are few and far between; it does get somewhat more watchable as it goes along, but it never, ever generates any suspense or fright, even as our victims are confronted with images of their worst fears. The dialogue is ridiculous, as are some of the characters; Tommy (Travis Van Winkle, "Friday the 13th" '09) and Rez (Randall Sims) are the worst offenders. Sarah Roemer ("Disturbia") at least has some appeal as the female lead Madison, who witnessed a traumatic incident as a child, experienced another tragedy as a young adult, and who is afraid that she could have inherited the insanity of one of her parents. With not a single thing standing out in this unsatisfying mess, it's extremely forgettable, with a weak and groan-inducing ending to boot. This viewer can be pretty forgiving and not too hard to entertain, so the fact that he couldn't find anything to enjoy about this movie should warn you of just how bad it is. Three out of 10.
Review of Asylum
