Eloise

Following his father's death, a young man in need of a paper for the inheritance finds that it's placed in an abandoned mental hospital and gathers a few friends to help retrieve it only to find the area haunted by the ghosts of residents who died there and must make it out alive.

For the most part, this one wasn't all that bad an effort. Most of what really works here are the incredibly strong atmosphere present here as the film makes the most of its genuinely haunting setting. The asylum is quite unnerving here, with the Gothic atmosphere given quite a prominent showcase being filled with long hallways, twisting designs and cramped rooms filled with the elaborate decor in a state of disuse and neglect. This overall look works nicely with the raging thunderstorm and utter darkness of the situation to create an eerie, effectively chilling location that gives the scenes plenty of weight for later. The haunting scenes here are quite fun, from the one victim suffering from continuous ghostly hallucinations around him that the rest of the group is unaware of, the hallucination of the doctor and his staff operating on the one friend or the chilling sequence of the ghosts trapping the one victim in the flooding room and trying to drag him underwater which is shown from his perspective as well as theirs which adds to the dizzying nature of the scene. Other big scenes include their twisted trip into the dining room which turns into them experiencing the crazy parties of the past where the patients and hospital staff converge together in a wild celebration which is all the eerier for taking place in a distorted sepia-toned view. The final half, which features their true selves back in the past where they get subjected to the tortures of their own fears generates a rather fun time as there's a fun time going through the potential traps and eventual escape that occurs here. These manage to hold it up over the few rather small flaws present. The main issue that brings this one down is the film's rather clumsy and haphazard story that comes off rather strangely at times. Though it generates the required setup for the story, there's no real reason why the kid himself is the one that's needed to visit the asylum under the direction of the lawyer's office which would've handled that matter for him. This unrealistic set-up is only a part of it all, which extends to how they plan to go about breaking in and stealing the material which doesn't make any sense at all and hampers the storyline with its incredulity. Likewise, the film takes quite a while to get going with the discovery of the hospital's past that it really flies through its torture scenes due to the lengthy and rather overlong first half that could've been cut down considerably. The other issue here is that there's no real reason for their continuous back choices that befall so many scenes here that basically put them into danger quite often throughout here to move the film along which becomes quite infuriating. These here are what hold this one back.

Rated R: Graphic Language and Graphic Violence.