Horror Movie Reviews

Dark Asylum - The Slayer | Movie Review

June 18, 2009 - 6:34 am

365

A ruthless serial killer (Larry Drake, featured in such films as. Darkman I and II, Dr.Giggles), nicknamed The Slayer, sows panic in a small American town as authorities fail to arrest him.
One night he is finally arrested and taken to an asylum that is close to closure, where he is visited by Dr. Maggie Belham (Paulina Porizkova) whose job it is to draw up a psychiatric profile of the killer to decide whether he or she is destined for the electric chair or a criminal asylum.
However, the "patient" proves uncooperative and soon breaks free, sowing terror and death in the asylum.

Dr. Belham, along with the asylum's other (and only) patient (Judd Nelson, best known for his participation in the cult film The Breakfast Club) will attempt to escape from the asylum and simultaneously prevent the Trucidiatore's escape. "When horror becomes grotesque and feels like self-parody."
This, in summary, is the assessment of Dark Asylum-The Slayer.
Aside from overused clichés (a killer who manages to eliminate policemen and guards as if it were the easiest thing in the world and what is more without ever using weapons except his own hands or some rudimentary device fabricated from light bulbs), frankly horror cinematography did not feel the need for this film.

Choices bordering on the ridiculous (the killer, who, remember, is a "mere" human being and not a demon-zombie like Jason Voorhees o Michael Myers, he is shot several times but seems to accuse nothing, he smashes doors as if they were made of cardboard, he lives in the sewers but knows the city streets inside out, and, most of all, Dr. Belham is irritating to the point of absurdity...a psychiatrist who is supposed to be rational and lucid in theory behaves like the silliest of little girls by holding the most idiotic behaviors typical of young protagonists in similar films and even is a "mentally ill" (Nelson) the smartest and most rational in the odd couple trying to escape the burly killer) help brand this film as "avoidable" and "disappointing."Avoidable because it is not noteworthy in anything, the history of horror cinematography survived very well without this film.

Disappointment why, with a communally good cast (especially Drake, who is always reliable in this kind of film, and Nelson) in which he also appears, in what might be called little more than an appearance, Jürgen Prochnow (The seed of madness, The English patient, The Da Vinci Code), it was legitimate to expect more.
The limitations of this film, however, remain substantially attributable to the script rather than to the performances of individual actors.

Ultimately, save yourself from viewing it unless you have time to spare or are a fan of the good Drake (which is why I personally saw the film).

Review by The Creature