BARGAIN BIN REVIEW
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Reviewing the movies
no one else will touch.
no one else will touch.
HELL ASYLUM
* (2002, 72 minutes, Rated R)
Hell is sitting through this movie.
Ah, reality TV... One of those wonderful trends of the new millennium, along with Harry Potter,
waterboarding and text messaging slang (IMHO). Like anything else, some reality shows are
amazing, and some amazingly banal. It was just a matter of time before reality TV saturated it's
way into our culture to become the subject of films. Again, some are excellent. And some are
this film.
The premise is mind-numbingly simple: A reality show challenges contestants to spend the night
in a haunted house... that turns out to be really haunted. As we learn in the interminably long
opening scene where the show is being pitched, the big hook of the ridiculously titled "Chill
Challenge" is that all the contestants are hot chics. Because there's a shortage of attractive
women on TV, I guess.
Do you like watching lovely ladies being interviewed about what scares them? Hope so, cuz that
takes up nearly a quarter of the film and consists of our "introduction" to the main characters.
Fortunately, in proud reality TV fashion, they fall into cookie-cutter categories:
The ladies are brought into the strangely office-looking house, given those headsets with the
cameras on 'em that are all the rage these days and sent off to stumble around in the dark (The
house is dark! The toilet is dirty! Scary!) fulfilling pointless tasks. Just like on reality TV! Except
every now and then, someone dressed up in Abu Ghraib-wear pops up and slaughters people
with very loud music.
* (2002, 72 minutes, Rated R)
Hell is sitting through this movie.
Ah, reality TV... One of those wonderful trends of the new millennium, along with Harry Potter,
waterboarding and text messaging slang (IMHO). Like anything else, some reality shows are
amazing, and some amazingly banal. It was just a matter of time before reality TV saturated it's
way into our culture to become the subject of films. Again, some are excellent. And some are
this film.
The premise is mind-numbingly simple: A reality show challenges contestants to spend the night
in a haunted house... that turns out to be really haunted. As we learn in the interminably long
opening scene where the show is being pitched, the big hook of the ridiculously titled "Chill
Challenge" is that all the contestants are hot chics. Because there's a shortage of attractive
women on TV, I guess.
Do you like watching lovely ladies being interviewed about what scares them? Hope so, cuz that
takes up nearly a quarter of the film and consists of our "introduction" to the main characters.
Fortunately, in proud reality TV fashion, they fall into cookie-cutter categories:
- The All-American Girl-Next-Door
- The Goth Chic
- The Horny Hottie
- The Over-Achiever
- The Bitch
The ladies are brought into the strangely office-looking house, given those headsets with the
cameras on 'em that are all the rage these days and sent off to stumble around in the dark (The
house is dark! The toilet is dirty! Scary!) fulfilling pointless tasks. Just like on reality TV! Except
every now and then, someone dressed up in Abu Ghraib-wear pops up and slaughters people
with very loud music.
Along the way, we're treated to what is meant to be
commentary on reality TV that can be summed up as "It
sucks." Anyone who has ever sat through an entire episode
of Big Brother would agree, but how's this for sucking: I had
to force myself to sit through a 72-minute film.
Because worse than the acting, the dialog, the editing, any
of the stuff one might complain about? This movie is
BORING.
Me? I'd rather sit through a Britney & Kevin: Chaotic
marathon.
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