User reviews

I think this film went straight to tape. It isn't particularly good in any field; the acting and plot aren't anything special.

You'll probably see this film on Cinemax or another cable movie channel.

Do yourself a favor, stay out of this movie!

A complete insult to all intelligent persons. Nobody could have saved this C movie with a script written by a T-Rex

Well, I can truly say that this is the worst movie I ever seen in my entire life!! I never saw a movie with such terrible acting!!!!! I have no idea how this film made it on DVD or Video! The only nice part about the film was Judd Nelson. He was the ONLY person who acted average. I got pretty tired of the Trasher's low vocabulary! ("Give me the key", "Where is the key") So, don't go see this movie!!! You'll be very disappointed!!!

When the serial killer The Trasher (Larry Drake) is accidentally captured by the police, he is sent to a deactivated asylum for psychological evaluation. The psychiatrist Maggie (Paulina Porizkova) is called for the evaluation, but The Trasher escapes from the safety room, and stays prisoned in the place, locked in a wing of the old building with Maggie and Quitz (Judd Nelson), a patient that works as janitor. The Trasher tries to escape before the arrival of the FBI agents in charge of transferring him to a prison, and Maggie and Quitz fight for survival, in a game of cat and mouse.

"Dark Asylum" is horrible, indeed a piece of crap. The story is ridiculous, and the character of Maggie is one of the most imbeciles I have ever seen on the screen. Only a top fashion model, who believes that can act, to accept such a ridiculous role. The scenes where the lunatic that works as janitor advises her to have common sense is one of the saddest, in the ridiculous sense, that I have ever seen. The lines are outrageously silly and the behavior of Maggie, as a psychiatrist, is unbelievable. This film is a complete waste of priceless time and money. I do not understand how a user can recommend this crap, and repeat the review and the advice many times, misleading other readers (like me). My vote is two.

Title (Brazil): "Hospício Maldito" ("Damned Asylum")

This ones sticks, even by Judd Nelson standards.

Large insane guys chases people through an asylum. They run a lot and

almost get caught a few times. Oh No!

That's it. You don't have to watch it now.

Avoid this one like jury duty.

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I would put this in the top 10 worst movies I have ever seen. But actually, I can't really think of a worst movie, so maybe this one is The One. When I wasn't falling asleep with boredom, I was cringing at the bad acting and absurd script that reads as if it was poorly translated from a foreign language. There are the absurdly slow fight scenes when, for example, a cop mysteriously just drops his gun and allows himself to be strangled. Then there is the lame attempt at irony, when the crazy guy says to the main character "You're insane."

Like a slowly unfolding car accident, I couldn't look away. Now I am left with a feeling of shame and emptiness for the 2 hours of my life that I wasted--precious time that I could have used for something more productive, like hitting my fingers with a hammer, or holding a penny on the wall with my nose.

Even Judd Nelson's acting was bad.

I have to disqualify this review immediately because I didn't see this whole film. Just the first 40 minutes, and wow is it dreck.

Very rarely are the two-line summaries on the DirecTV guide accurate, but in this case it is. Shrink trapped in mental asylum on the verge of being shut down with insane, indestructible killer with apparent super-human strength. Killer makes Michael Myers look absolutely verbose and interesting in comparison.

That's it. Wow.

And Judd Nelson's in this crap...and I thought Anthony Michael-Hall's career was in the toilet.

Larry Drake is one of the best creepy killer's ever,, aka the Dentist,, well you got Paulina Porizkova running around the movie,, that's always nice,, Juergen Pruchnow investigating,, what's not to like.. I like everything that this movie had to offer, I think a lot of people were expecting like cinema art or something,, all I wanted is what exactly the movie itself present,, shock and awe,, blood, guts,, and a killer chasing around a pretty girl..i was also pleased with the plot line of the film, the location shooting, and the setting. Larry drake just plays the creepiest of killer's something about him that makes him the perfect monster or serial killer,, I hope he doesn't get typecast in that role but if he does,, we know that we will have an entertaining bloody killer on our hands for years to come no matter what he does.

This movie sucks in every aspect there is. The story is awful. It completely lacks any logic and the acting is a prime example of the essence of B-actors. A rerun of any other horror movie would be a better choice. In summary, a complete waste of time!

"Dark Asylum" is the tale of a serial killer named "The Thrasher" who has a knack for killing young women and "keeping" their bodies. After 23 victims, "The Thrasher" is arrested and sent for a psych test, given by a beautiful young new doctor. When he escapes (shocker, huh?), it is up to the doctor and another patient at the hospital to get out of there alive. Will they?

"Dark Asylum" is an ordinary thriller that gets a cut above thanks to very good acting all around, a strange ending (it involves a girl in a cage!?!?), and an eery setting. This is one of those films that you've seen before but can't stop watching. Recommended as a late night rental. 6/10

Okay, I didn't expect much from this movie. No big names, except for Larry Drake (when was the last time he was in something decent?), and Pauline Porizkova (Ric Ocasek's SO). Your typical idiot plot (everybody acts like an idiot otherwise the movie would be over in about 5 minutes), your unstoppable loonie, your designated victims. Refreshing change in that we didn't have to listen to the loonie babble endlessly. However, the big oddity is the implicit message: sane people are stupid, ineffectual, weak, and incompetent. Crazies, on the other hand, are cunning, tough, brutally strong, and endure gunshots with only minor annoyance. This is seen not only in our unstoppable villain, but also in the sympathetic, supportive nutcase who aids our heroine. It is even seen (albeit briefly) in our heroine herself, who has her sanity repeatedly questioned when she starts behaving with some sense of self-preservation. Add in the coffee-swilling, donut scarfing cops and you have 90 minutes of stupidity you won't want to watch sober.

A psychiatrist and a janitor do battle with a deranged serial killer while trapped inside of a 'Dark Asylum'.

The film begins with us finding out that a serial killer named "The Trasher" has killed well over a dozen people, leaving only their blood at the crime scene which is always near a dumpster. While on the beat, a couple of cops hear screaming underground near an open sewer grate. They decide to go down and end up finding The Trasher and all of his bodies. After killing one of the cops, he is captured and taken to the Crestmore Asylum for an evaluation by our main character Dr. Maggie Belham. The serial killer quickly escapes capture killing a bunch of hospital stage and cops before setting his sights on Maggie. While on the run in the hospital, Maggie runs into someone named Quitz who first claims to be the janitor but eventually reveals himself to be a patient who fell through the cracks of the system. Maggie and Quitz will have to fight The Trasher until midnight when the feds are scheduled to arrive for the transfer. Can they make it?

'Dark Asylum' is a very straight forward horror film that doesn't involve a lot of thinking, which isn't necessarily a bad thing given it's lower budget and not having the best script. The location of the asylum was really one of the best things about the movie. It was dark, creepy, and felt very dated and desolate. It was infuriating at times, with the characters constantly making dumb decisions for 90% of the movie. But overall, it kept me invested enough to sit through the whole thing and interested to see how it all played out.

Larry Drake is a scary dude. He is huge, and played the role of the psychotic "Trasher" very well. The rest of the acting had question marks for sure, but I thought it was alright overall and didn't distract from the movie. Supermodel Paulina Porizkova played final girl Maggie pretty well, hitting all the beats of fear and strength. Judd Nelson was all over the place as the janitor/patient Quitz, but had a likability to him which made me root for his survival at least.

I would recommend giving 'Dark Asylum' at least a watch if it comes your way. It was done at a time (2001) when a ton of these straight to video low budget horror films were being chucked out, so don't expect a masterpiece. Take it for the mindless thriller it is and you may enjoy the ride.

5/10.

It's sounds interesting with the concept, but the execution is poorly done. There's barely any story other than the main character trying to figure out how to escape from the locked up asylum with a Madman inside. It does have a decent build-up with the madman introduction and how deadly he is. But most of the movie is just the characters trying to escape while surviving against the villain. The movie has a pacing issue with the suspenseful scenes happening too quickly to have tension in it and is predictable to guess what happened next. Also, there's not that much happened in the movie to make it interesting or enjoyable to watch throughout because it's mostly just the same things. The characters try to find ways to escape or fight back, but it ends up being a failure. The climax itself isn't that bad because it's somewhat suspenseful, but the characters don't make the best decisions.

The lead actress in this movie, Paulina Porizkova, is fairly decent in this role. Having never seen her in anything else, I wasn't sure what to expect. She has her moments of overacting, but the main problem was some of the dialogue she was given. Larry Drake was scary enough as the killer and is considerably larger than I remember him being. Judd Nelson was really the standout for me in this movie. While not his finest work, he was believable enough in this role and seemed to be the only character that didn't make the typical horror movie asinine decisions. There is no real blood and gore in this movie, so it'll suffice for anyone who doesn't mind a little bad dialogue and plot holes, but wants to see a mildly scary film.

It was, indeed, a nice little movie...except the fact that I couldn't find anything, absolutely nothing gore about it. Sorry but, when you call a movie "Maniac Trasher" (french title) you are expecting a lot more blood (was there even any in this movie?) and a lot of disgusting, disgusting scenes. But... no. Nothing ever happens. They think he's dead ? Well he's not. And it goes on and on forever. The ? oh, yes, by the way, let me introduce the winners : the czech former mannequin and the Breakfast Club former star... trying to escape the Trasher's terrible starve for death, and steam... see mythic scene when, hidden in the ceiling, the 2 heroes almost die of hot, steamy air blown by the maniac who let off some steam -hum- from the showers downstairs. Mean, mean trasher, you awful swine, you almost got them...But how the hell did you find a way to flee through the sewers, ending up EXACTLY under our model's mom's house ? where her little adorable, fatherless child is sleeping, waiting to be kidnapped by your infamous hands ? How, indeed... Nobody knows, but I do know that in the end, you might -or not- die because of electricity, or is it... fire ? Who knows, maybe you are...not...dead, terrible Trasher.

This movie had a lot going for it to start out with. Excellent setting of mood during the credits and a buildup of the main character. But it loses its way. It is obvious that Larry Drake can make a great bad guy (something every movie like this needs) but the screenplay ruins the role for him once the action starts. Before that he is actually a thoughtful, resourceful operator who works by intellect as well as brute strength. By the end he is just a brute and it turns out out that there is nothing there. You're expected to believe that he somehow takes out an entire swat team single handedly. And you never get to find out what his motivation was in all this.

This is the class of movie where every active character routinely does the worst possible thing for themselves. The police (except for the opening part) seem to know nothing about police procedure. Everyone -- even the bad guy! -- gratuitously maximizes the danger to themselves. It is too obvious.

They even blew Maggie's (Paulina Porizkova) "Ripley" moment, where she saddles up with cast aside hardware and wades back in to take on the bad guy because all the people who are supposed to be doing it are too stupid to do it.

And I thought Judd Nelson's career was in better shape than this. What is he doing taking on jobs like this? Maybe he owed someone a favor. His character at one point looks like it could be interesting, then fades like everything else in this movie.

Oh, well.

The basic plot is simple enough as are most "asylum" movie plots. An asylum is a perfect place for mayhem as there are plenty of abandoned ones around the world for set locations. Dark Asylum is well directed and written, and has overtones of Jean-Luc Goddard. How? Some scenes are cut and some events are not shown on screen, but cut out so that our minds can fill in the details. The shots and scenes are well connected. Opening jumps out at us with the cops going into the sewers to discover Trashers lair. There is one shot of him on the ground and cops and flashlights in the back ground with light columns. Would have been a pretty neat DVD cover.

Lighting is superb, with great reflections. Larry Drake is great as The Trasher and reminds me of Thor from those 50's movies and a little Odd Job thrown in for good measure. Pretty decent job from super model, Paulina too. Overall very well crafted with some asylum surprises. The Trasher is caught in the beginning of the movie and sent to an asylum for examination...ha..as though. Maggie is called in to do the evaluation before midnight, only an hour away. The Trasher is intelligent, crafty and cunning which does reflect some true life situations. He figures out their actions pretty quickly.

Anyway, he gets sent to the nut house and Maggie, a psych doctor, is sent to analyze him, and the surprise is: her daddy was a serial killer as well. The Trasher, well, trashes most of the security guards and doctors in the asylum and chases Maggie and Quitz, the janitor, throughout the entire facility. Of course this has been done before but, the director Georgory Gieras, has added some panache to the "asylum" genre, with good direction and script constructs.

Larry Drake plays The Trasher with menacing delight and of course you get can't beat chasing a super model like Paulina Porizkova who plays Maggie. One major error was not getting Pauline out of her business pants suit into something much more revealing, showing at least legs, or cleavage, or both as this is mandatory in horror/thriller genres.

Maggie hooks up with the janitor, Judd Nelson, who can't seem to decide if he is Steve Zahn or Marty Feldman, but being a geeky janitor he knows the asylum inside/out and does lead The Trasher on a wild somewhat of a maze chase through the asylum.

Did everyone catch the homage to Cukoo's Nest? It was where The Trasher gained control of the loudspeaker system and plays Nest music and says, "Time for your medicine"...funny, and the movie needed a lot more of those kinds of punches. And there was an homage to Desperado, when the Maggie gets asked about her last name...buco..bocho..? as Steve Buscemi did at the bar in 1995 movie Desperado. Very clever reference.

Of course cops are inadequate as in real life. Many times they are baffled, confused and unsure of what to do in a crisis situation as in Columbine, so this is not unrealistic. And of course, what would you do while being chased by some 300 lb maniac. Huh? Take him head on? or run? yeah, run!

Several visceral scenes are cut as others have mentioned, which is curious. After all, it is a horror/slasher flick. The Trashser wants the key to get out. The janitor swallows the key. The next scene should be him being eviscerated for the key, but we never see it..whaaa? We simply see The Trasher with a bloody key. Maybe the director was working off the old Hays morality code from the 30's to the 60's. Or..or he is spoofing our expectation of seeing guts spilled over the floor. Hmmmm...I need to see the DVD extras.

Overall though, a very high production value, good acting, nice maniacal killer, and the usual baffled cops actually make this an above average thriller. The Hungarians and Romanians seem to have good production crews which is why a lot of asylum movies are made there.

I saw this On Demand TV and found it to be above average, but get Paulina out of those pants suits and into something hot, doctor or not she is a super model.

Some folks panned this film as worst, bad, etc, but they have really not been to some "Horror festivals", like I have, with film entries shot on a cheap video camera, and with no lighting, plot, script, or direction, and just lots of meat counter entrails.

This suspense filled movie about a diabolical, insane killer, a helplessly trapped psychiatrist, and a caught up in the mix janitor gives new meaning to the term astonishing! The doctor, played saucily by Paulina Porizkova, becomes trapped in an insane asylum at night with no way out. The deranged lunatic, performed admirably by Larry Drake Jr., hunts her down, as they play cat and mouse. Meanwhile, a hapless janitor, played brilliantly by Judd Nelson (The Breakfast Club), tries to help the doctor, and survive the night. Will the sun rise before "The Thrasher" catches the doctor and janitor?

Rent or buy this exciting movie and find out!

Also: great directing by Gregory Gieras.

Just to give an example of how poorly directed this piece of junk is: when Larry Drake is trying to escape from a straightjacket while chained to a chair, the close shots of him tearing out the seams of the straightjacket are backgrounded with Foley sound of him kicking the strut between the chair's legs - and yet he remains perfectly still! (Just try kicking the legs of a chair that you're sitting on and see if you can stay still, no matter how heavy you are - ludicrous.) Larry Drake, in the usual hackneyed role of serial killer-as-superman is badly miscast. Not to be weight-ist, but he is far too heavy to pull off the role convincingly. The film tries, for example, through shoddy editing techniques, to make us believe that a man as overweight as he is can outrun a bunch of cops. It looks so absurd that it's not even laughable. Actually everybody in this movie moves WAY too slowly. It's one of those films where the bad guy staggeringly advances on his victim while the victim, as yet uninjured and otherwise unimpaired, flounders on the floor, trying to scuttle away but managing instead to conveniently back into a wall, all the while yelling, "Nooooo! Please - aaaargh!" (Sort of like my reaction to this cinematic garbage.)