Some interesting and disturbing editing towards the end. Before that, the house where the mental ward was located was the star. The story moves about between “The Shining” and “Shutter Island”, but struggles to really develop very tightly towards the finale. There are plot twists, but they are a bit undeserved and arbitrary, so they do not really cause stunned awe, but rather shrugging indifference. Could have been the other way round, but well, somebody had to be the bad guy. As the script is weak, the location and the production design had to carry all the weight. A lot of semi-transparent plastic to cover the asbestos-infested walls and ceilings makes for creepy lightning, plus some interestingly familiar faces, with David Caruso’s eerie presence and Scottish actor Peter Mullan (who has a disturbing resemblance to George W. Bush) at the center.
Altogether a slightly over-produced horror-thriller, that never really manages to get the audience attention to nail biting level. After writing this, I checked director Brad Anderson’s other films, and realized that almost the same could have been said about his “Transsiberian”, which almost never realized the potential of the setting and story outline.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/session_9/
thomas4cinema 