A screenwriter visits the set of his horror movie in an abandoned psychiatric hospital, where a dark force begins to create its own drama.
Ouch! I gave this a shot because of some good recent IMDb reviews and the writer/directors also wrote The Ward, a passable hospital horror. Problem starts with the screenplay, which trowels on 20 different characters who get lost in a series of choppy, ineffective scenes. Most of the dialogue is pointless, failing to give impetus to the dark force, and the threat is confusingly both internal and external as ghouls creep out of the shadows and the cast goes insane. Plus they chose a really lame protagonist. Total mess and very hard to sit through despite the short run time.
On top of that is the damn music. It's mostly simple, eerie strings and plinky piano - but it never turns off. Even when the odd dramatic scene comes along the dialogue gets swamped, and the music completely drains other scenes of their creepiness when silence is needed. Very close to hitting the eject button.
Hard to judge the actors, because their characters were so badly drawn - a bunch of squabbling 13 year olds - and their lines were so pointless and lacking in intelligence or information.
Camera was also poor. Lots of reflection on the lens and bad lighting of the actors.
The story did develop pace in the end, but overall just awful. A much better film in this genre is Grave Encounters.
