Madhouse (DVD, 2005)

Welcome BACK Joshua Leonard! (JOSH in the BlairWitch Project) THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. Now where's Heather Donahue? LOL!

We start out with a very freaky opening whith spooky ambiance. A little boy runs in terror from an isolated mental institution. He runs through the woods from a force we cannot see, only to be run down by a car. Years later, Clark (Leonard) is a young doctor who gets work at same mental institution. He is introduced to both the staff and patients.

Clark is eventually introduced to the head of the institute, Dr. Franks He openly tells Clark that they do not have the funds to cure anyone, merely to maintain them. And why would a learned scholar have so many books on ghosts and the occult?

Much more pleasing to the eyes is fellow doc, Sara (Jordan Ladd - CABIN FEVER, CLUB DREAD). She has compassion for the patients but has been working under Franks too long to do anything.

Clark starts seeing the ghost of the little boy wandering the hallways. He even follows him all the way down to the basement, where all the real crazies are kept. "This is where they tuck away the people no one wants to hear about," someone explains. This is a place where sanitation is non-existent. The place is made up of blood, sweat, urine, feces and bad plumbing. These elements seem so at home here that any architecture seems built around the decay. He begins to have conversations with an apparition in a cell that hides in shadow, baiting Clark and suggesting he may know the secret to the hospital. Around this time, patients and staff alike are brutally murdered.

It has an ending that's ok, a small twist. Nothing great.

Overall, MADHOUSE is good. It's not going to tax your brain as much as it would like to, but it's not a celluloid lobotomy like other films populated by crazies.

AND WELCOME BACK JOSH! (LOL!!) (-: