A recent medical school grad who takes a position at a mental institution soon finds himself taken with one of his colleagues — though he has no initial idea of a recent, horrifying staffing change.
Genre : Thriller
Country : USA
Alternative Title : Eliza Graves
Cast :
Kate Beckinsale : Eliza Graves
Jim Sturgess : Edward Newgate
Michael Caine : Dr. Salt
Ben Kingsley : Silas Lamb
Director : Brad Anderson
My opinion
“The satisfaction of helping those in hell.
See, of all the afflictions, I can think of none more, more cruel than madness, sir.
See, it robs a man of his reason, his dignity, his very soul. And it does so, so slowly, without the remorse of death.”
Can you remember Ben Kingsley in “Shutter Island” as head of a psychiatric institution dressed up in a white overcoat ? In “Stone Hearst Asylum” he took that white overcoat back out of the closet and while smoking a pipe with a pensive look, he’s extensively lecturing about the revolutionary method he applies at psychiatric patients. It’s a movie based on the short story “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether” from 1845, written by the supreme master of horror stories, Edgar Allan Poe. This master of the sinister and macabre, who used the dark depths of the human soul and primal fears as a foundation, situated this story in the south of France in those days. An institution used an unconventional way to treat internees. Instead of locking them up, they allowed patients to empathize with their delusions and their madness.
In the end it wasn’t an earth-shattering movie. Amusing yes. And there are worse ways to spend your time. What stays with you are the odd personages who roam through the corridors of this institution: the man who thinks he’s a horse and only meekly follows orders when he’s being threatened that his next comb-over will be skipped, the nymphomaniac nurse and the Frankenstein-like wild man locked in a dungeon. The wise words told to aspiring psychologists at the beginning “Believe nothing of what you hear, and only half of what you see.“, is indeed applicable to this film, because there are some whoppers of story twists in the end. Final tip : don’t watch any trailer, because they give away too much !
My rating 6/10
Links : IMDB
I think this film provides an interesting story and tension that supports the excitement of the film