BLOODY HELL IT'S A MOVIE ABOUT AN ASYLUM - IT'S NOT ABANDONED, IT'S NOT HAUNTED, IT DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A CRAZY DO... UMM, WAIT A MINUTE...








Stonehearst Asylum aka Eliza Graves (2014)

Warning: Today's review is a little bit of whining, a little bit of Edgar Allen Poe, and the rest is a movie that takes place in the southern provinces of France. You have been warned.

Well, yesterday really sucked. If you have a blog you know what I'm talking about. All the videos that weren't directly from YouTube disappeared and frantic people were trying to get help to find out what happened. Guess what? NOBODY got help. It just decided to start working again. I had tried to replace a couple with videos I uploaded to YouTube but the video police slammed them down and spanked me for using third party content. One they just outright deleted. Nice.

So I'm trying to figure out what to do and... things freeze. Then they stop. Then I get sad faces on every page I try to access. Yes, the freaking internet went down again. ALL DAY. With us that includes our cell phones and apparently there were MANY very unhappy people because trying to call both tech numbers resulted in a busy signal before the number even finished dialing. Crap.


I really wanted to do this movie quick mostly because of Jim Sturgess, who I first saw in the movie Across The Universe and I have an ick-crush on. Just kidding. Right now, I actually have an ick-crush on Eric Balfour. What? What's an ick-crush? It's a crush that if the person you have it on ever found out they'd look at you, grimace and say "Ick!"


So the hubby has been telling me I need to be as funny as I used to be. And that would be what on a scale from one to ten??? What is 'as funny'? Okay, maybe the movies haven't been stupid enough, so I watched one this morning, Dark Ride (2006) which, as far as teenage slasher flicks go, is as stupid as one can get. I mean REALLY dumb.

I had it figured out in the first ten minutes (and I was right). The teenagers even got slaughtered in the order I guessed. And it was dumb, dumb, dumb. Huh, somehow I still don't feel very amusing. To hell with it, on to the movie...

I usually really don't like period pieces. They're long, they're dark, and they're boring. This one? Meh, it wobbled between good and duh through most of it, with a twist ending that I thought wasn't terribly original, but since Edgar Allan Poe wrote the original story, I guess back then it was.


Then I did something smart (I know, I'm scared too!). I took a break from writing this review and thought about how could Poe write a romantic type story as this movie portrays it? I thought about it some more (okay I confess, I actually was stuffing my face with Red Vines) and I started seeing the creepy. 

Trouble is, the way the direction and the production was handled (and I was VERY scared to see Mel Gibson as one of the producers), it took what was actually a very creepy situation and tried to run it through the washing machine a couple of times with bleach to see if they could make it look any better. They didn't.

The movie, directed by Brad Anderson (who did Session 9 - if you ever want to see an abandoned asylum movie done right, watch that one), is based on Poe's short story, "The System Of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether."

I laughed so hard I... nah, I just went huh, that's kind of clever. The main reason I watched it though was the strong cast - Jim Sturgess, Kate Beckinsale, Michael Caine, Sir Ben Kingsley and a brief appearance by his son Edmund, David Thewlis and others that seemed to guarantee a sure winner.

Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope.

Oh the movie was GOOD in those boring ways people like to talk about movies. It had beautiful cinematography, a great director, and solid performances, I'll give them that. But if this is a tale right out of ole' Mr. Poe, they must have screwed around with it some. I DO read and I like Poe so I read over this short story and yeah, very little of the original story remains. 

The written story contained a really cool sentence where the doctor (who is not identified at first) sees a beautiful woman but wonders if she is sane because she had "a certain restless brilliancy about her eyes which half led me to imagine she was not (sane)."


Some of the treatments sounded pretty good to me too: "We put much faith in amusements of a simple kind, such as music, dancing, gymnastic exercises generally, cards, certain classes of books, and so forth. We affected to treat each individual as if for some ordinary physical disorder, and the word ‘lunacy’ was never employed." 

"A great point was to set each lunatic to guard the actions of all the others. To repose confidence in the understanding or discretion of a madman, is to gain him body and soul. In this way we were enabled to dispense with an expensive body of keepers.” “And you had no punishments of any kind?” “None.” “And you never confined your patients?” “Very rarely."

But this is not really Poe's story per se, so lets get on with the movie. We first see an Oxford demonstration of a woman who cannot stand to be touched - the Professor giving the lecture is rough when touching her, which causes her to seize but not before she tells the audience she is 'not mad'. The Professor explains that guilty people claim to be innocent, and mad people claim to be sane. His methods are rigid, rough and inhumane (in my opinion).

We then see that one of the doctors from there is sent to an out-of-the-way asylum in France (although it was filmed in Bulgaria) to train in asylum medicine. Duh.


It's nearing the turn of the century. The doctor, who identifies himself as Edward Newgate (Jim Sturgess) meets Dr. Silas Lamb (Sir Ben Kingsley). Dr. Lamb had no idea anyone was coming, but the mail in 1899 isn't ideal and they need the help so he takes him on. To Edward's surprise, the "system of soothing" (Poe's words) seems to be in effect and there doesn't seem to be any order to the place at all. In fact it seems to be the total opposite of what Oxford was teaching.

Dr. Newgate also discovers that the woman shown in the demonstration at Oxford is now at the same asylum - duh. He's obviously enchanted with her but can't even be a gentleman and kiss her hand without her having a fit. 

His first clue that something is amiss with this situation (besides the unorthodox treatments) is that a big feast is prepared for the staff and patients alike - the main dish being squirrel meat. He is sitting across from Eliza (duh) who kicks his leg, causing him to spill his drink. When she guides him to a place to clean up, she says he has to leave - NOW. 

This movie would have been mercifully short if he'd just done that, but noises from the boiler pipes leads him into the basement, where in cages he finds sick, starving people begging for release. They tell him that THEY are the staff of the hospital, were overcome by Lamb and his cronies, and now the crazies run the place. Hmm... that sounds pretty familiar too but - meh.

The one claiming to be the real superintendent of the place, Dr. Benjamin Salt (Michael Caine) begs Dr. Newgate to help them as the cold and damp have sickened many of them and they are barely given anything to eat - not to mention they're not supposed to be locked up. To prove he's not lying, he tells Dr. Newgate where he hid Lamb's file to show he's a patient, not a doctor.


He finds it. The guy is one class A nutjob. Today they would say 'Oh no, that's not politically correct, he was obviously suffering from PTSD and Bipolar disorder.' But here, I get to say he's nuttier than a fruitcake, crazier than a shithouse rat, more insane than Randy Quaid, and nastier than two starving dogs fighting over one bone. Good enough?

So Dr. Newgate's got a major problem. He's being watched 24 hours a day, yet trying to sneak food, water and medicine to the staff trapped in the basement. He's puzzled to hear that Dr. Salt believes in the rough type of treatment he learned about at Oxford - all those horrible things you see in other movies - the scalding baths, being confined to a chair and have cold water poured over your head and other goodies.

When Dr. Lamb finds that he's been discovered, he keeps his cool and to get revenge on Dr. Salt reveals his 'invention' - basically the first (I doubt it but it keeps the story going) electro-shock therapy machine. It is the only time he strays from his 'gentling' treatment and he uses it on Dr. Salt until the man no longer remembers who he is or anyone else for that matter.

Dr. Newgate's close to being found out so he's got to get out of there but he won't leave without Eliza. His obsession... well, let's address that later. He decides to try the same thing Lamb did to the real staff - spike the champagne with chloral hydrate (since this has so many names, let's just call it a knock-out drug). But he's discovered, the crazies don't drink the drug and things go, to excuse the expression, crazier.


But in one of those last-minute saves, just before Dr. Newgate is subject to the shock treatments, he shows Dr. Lamb a picture that was the primary reason he went nuts in the first place. How did he get it? There is a freaking lot of duhs in the movie 'cause when the plot gets stuck, something just pops up and they say 'Oh, THAT'S lucky!' Pffft...

It seems Dr. Lamb was in the war, and after trying to do research to find out which one, I found a whole freaking page of wars so forget it... anyway, he was a field doctor and he entered a tent full of those injured. They were all suffering, most had lost limbs, but what freaked him out most was a child (they intimated it to be a drummer boy) with both arms cut off. He lost it - he shot every person in the tent and tried to kill himself but gee whiz, he was out of bullets and apparently you're only allowed six bullets per war.

So now both Dr. Lamb and Dr. Salt sit at a table together, both permanently out of their skulls, so to speak. Dr. Newgate leaves the asylum in the care of a matron and takes Eliza out of there.

So we have to have a kicker, right? Can't just have it to be happily every after... two gentlemen show up, one to work at the asylum, the other to pick up his wife. One is the real Dr. Newgate, the other is Eliza's husband. D'oh! Oops, I mean DUH!!!!

We get a flashback of Eliza's time at Cambridge - after she was taken out of the classroom, another patient was being wheeled in. WHO WAS IT? TELL ME! C'MON, PUT DOWN YOUR CHEETOS AND YOUR BEER AND TELL ME!!!


Just kidding - it was of course the man pretending to be Dr. Newgate. His condition was one in which he actually has no identity of his own that he can remember so he kind of latches onto an identity of another person, usually a doctor.

The last scene shows him and Eliza, quite happy in a beautiful asylum in Tuscany, Italy, as Dr. and Mrs. Lamb.

Nice ending no? NO. And this is why I'm glad I had some time to think about this.

Dr. Newgate was NOT a doctor. He was a patient suffering from a serious condition. He saw Eliza and became obsessed with her, to the point of breaking out of the hospital, taking on his doctor's identity (And how come Eliza didn't know that? Dr. Newgate was HER doctor too!), he travelled a great distance to reach the hospital where she was sent. So, a doctor stalked her. You may clap at that sentence if you wish.

He then continues the charade and treats people - when he has no medical training. After he finds out that the crazies are running the asylum, for a man in need of a hospital who cannot be on his own, how is it that all of a sudden he's smart enough to outwit a whole prisoner gang and take care of the imprisoned staff?

And THEN when things come to a head, he and Eliza take off together - still with no identity of his own. That is why he takes the identity of Dr. Lamb when he again becomes a doctor at another asylum.

So two insane people are now running an asylum instead of having at least one who was a REAL doctor. How frightening is that?

MOVIES THAT AREN'T WORTH MENTIONING BUT NOW THAT I'M HERE I MIGHT AS WELL WARN YOU ABOUT THEM PART TWO

Twixt (2011)

There are movies you discover by accident and think 'Oh, cool!' and others you say 'Oh shit!' This film would be in the scatalogical category. How can that be? It was by the awe-inspiring Francis Ford Coppola after all, right? Young ones, let me break this down for you a bit:

FFC is currently 74 years old. He has a place in Napa Valley, California. In the 70's this gentleman was GOD. Ever heard of a little film called The Godfather? I know you little whippersnappers, lots of you weren't even born yet. Got it. Think of it this way - he was the Joss Whedon of the 70's, okay? Everything he made was golden. Happening to have a nephew named Nicolas Cage was NOT his fault.

In the 80's and 90's he tried to keep that Golden Boy status with mixed results 'cause hey, he was rich, he was getting older and probably didn't really care all that much. Sorry, that's real life. So here we are - in the 21st century and this dude is past retirement. But he makes a picture anyway. He chooses a potato as a leading man. 

Not just any potato - you know the one at the bottom of the bag that's getting kind of mushy with the little white roots sticking out that you know you'll have to cut almost in half to get anything good out of it? That one. His name is Val Kilmer. And keeping with the food motif, FFC gives a very brief role (FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE THEIR DIVORCE the reviews keep repeating) to a prune who keeps yelling at the potato over Skype about money. That... was almost funny. 

The prune was, of course, Joanne Whalley. I know, I know, WHO? Trust me, they were a 'thing' for about a month when they appeared in Willow together (don't ask, that was probably before you were born too).

You know what was funnier? Some fan said he must have gained weight just for that role. Bwahahahaha... honey if that was true, he's been preparing for YEARS. It also reminded me of the Val I knew, from 1985's Real Genius when his professor said, "I want to see more of you around the lab," and Val's character instantly comes back with "Fine, I'll gain weight." <snicker>

AND there's a man whose voice was driving me crazy although he didn't look that familiar... I finally pinned it down and this is almost before MY time - Don Novello, better known to your parents (or grandparents) as SNL's Father Guido Sarducci played Melvin, the town's clock tower keeper.

This is supposed to have happened in some small town... somewhere. Actually a lot of the movie was filmed ON COPPOLA'S PROPERTY. See? He's so tired he doesn't even want to leave home. Welcome to my world.

So. I like having one word sentences. It drives my hubby crazy. 

"So is not a sentence." 

"So?"

So. We have a vegetable, a fruit, and a piece of petrified wood. That would be Bruce Dern to you older ones. And one stupid, vapid, nonsensical story that strung waaaay out like some kind of bad hangover.

A writer of witch hunter stories wants to write about something else and after being in this small town and discovering a place where Edgar Allan Poe once spent the night (In California?) he plops his mushy body down and thinks about what to write about. Looooong story shortened considerably, every time he falls asleep he has more interesting dreams than his waking life. Again, welcome to my world.

Not only does he decides to join the overdone vampire novel crowd, he thinks this particular town (with his new dream-buddy Poe's help) will be his inspiration and where REAL vampires are. Uh huh. They show the potato drinking constantly - gee, that couldn't have anything to do with all the dreams could it? 

He also (in his dreams, in real life he'd get arrested) has an interesting and uneasy relationship with a 13-year-old girl (Elle Fanning - younger sister of Dakota) which gets even weirder when Poe points out that his wife was 13 AND his cousin (this is actually true). People didn't faint over that kind of thing in Poe's day but today, mating a half mushed potato and a young girl is just... sick.

So we get this convoluted story full of 'maybes' - maybe there are real vampires across the lake (there's a commune there for whatever reason), maybe there's a serial killer that's been killing kids for (they don't say - they don't provide a whole hell of a lot of info to keep the story rolling), maybe the latest victim (who has a huge rafter in her chest) was a vampire too, maybe she's the girl the potato dreams about, maybe Edgar Allan Poe really IS trying to get the potato to write a great book. Sheah, and monkeys might fly out of my butt. Ah geez, you guys are too young for THAT reference too?

I'm beginning to feel like a half mushed potato myself. Anyway, the story drags with maybes on and on and on... until this sorry piece of film is movie length then they cut to a quick ending that shows you what happened, kind of like when you chew food, open your mouth and show it to your sibling.

The girl is a metaphor, maybe, for love lost and his dead kid (I didn't mention that - cause it wasn't important), Poe is a metaphor, maybe, for the potato not being able to write his book without her, the town being a metaphor, maybe, for the small world he's stuck in, and since the last scene is him turning in the book the whole movie is a metaphor, maybe, for an old man looking to make a quick buck.

He wasn't able to squeeze it all into his ending though and has to tell you, in text (like this was real or something which blows the metaphor stuff out of the water) that the potato's book sold, he now writes vampire series (oh God please no), the murders in the town were never solved and a character they kept showing that may or may not have been real, a 50's style biker with emo makeup, is never seen again. And neither is 90 minutes of your life.

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MOVIES THAT DON'T SUCK... NO, REALLY!

The Raven (2012)

This was one movie I actually wanted to see when it came out but being housebound kind of puts a damper on those kinds of activities. If I go, it's got to be for something the hubby really wants to see too, cause it's really hard for me and not worth it unless he can enjoy it. I love John Cusack in anything he acts in, and of course I'm also a fan of Edgar Allen Poe... that being said I was skeptical about this movie since knowing Poe's history I found it highly unlikely that he would have the strength or the cunning to act like a detective in this mystery/thriller.

I found this to be very enjoyable however and worth a look so if you haven't seen it and want to, you might want to skip this review. This movie explores the 'real' reason Poe was found delirious on a park bench and died a few days later in a hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. In real life this was unfortunately his true end - although the cause of death has been debated since they really didn't have ways of detecting these things back in 1849. 

So this movie tries to give Poe a heroic end to his rather sad life at the age of 40. Like most geniuses in the past Poe was not recognized for his wonderful works until long after his death. In fact his most famous poem that this movie is named after sold for only $9 ($272.73 in today's dollars) and that's pretty much why he was always broke and in debt.

In this movie, horrific murders are discovered and it is determined that someone is copying Poe's stories in these gruesome deaths. He's asked if death occurs a lot in his works and he had to admit that it does. The inspector whose name is Fields then decides to ask Poe to assist them since he knows about every action the killer may take, especially after the woman Poe loves, Emily, has been kidnapped and the killer has been leaving notes insinuating that if Poe doesn't write about his exploits he will kill her.

The cloak and dagger moves along with the almost Sherlock-like actions and deductions made by both Poe and the inspector seem pretty far fetched and the movie slows down quite a bit but it is still a neat piece of acting and special effects, and I was kind of wondering if Cusack could pull off playing the morose and always drunk Poe, but he did it beautifully and that helps us through the endless clues and running around the two do to save the beautiful Emily (that part is fictional, he never pursued anyone named Emily).

The killer turns out to be Ivan, a typesetter working for the newspaper that publishes Poe's works. Ivan reveals to him that he will free Emily if Poe writes a sort of final story and takes poison. He does and Ivan leaves, but not before telling Poe he plans to kill an author by the name of Jules Verne in France. He leaves without revealing Emily's hiding place and Poe must use the last of his strength to figure it's a part of 'The Tell-Tale Heart' and gets her out just in time. He then wanders to the park and waits on the bench for the poison to finish its work. This is the movie's way of trying to explain why Poe in real life was found incoherent on a park bench and died in the hospital a few days later.

The movie ends as the inspector looks at Poe lying dead in the hospital and the doctor tells him that he kept repeating 'tell Fields his name is Reynolds' (the name Ivan told him he would be using in France). In real life it is fact that in the hospital Poe kept repeating the name 'Reynolds' up until he died.

The last scene is in France as Ivan gets into his carriage. He is met by Fields, who is carrying a pistol.

This movie moved a little slower than I would have liked, however it was well made and certainly worth a look.