Too much of everything

One of my all time favorites.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

I like horror movies, i enjoy it, but this... wow! it's too bad!honestly, i expect much more when I see the name, and the movie poster. I like the nice Sarah Roemer... so, i decided to watch itBut it so awful. The Script, the Acting... The Doctor is like a Joke, it don't scare anyone...I exoect a lot of horror. An asylum is too scary, i like it. It would be use to do a good movie, like Grave Encounters.All the story have a kind of nonsense...i don't know... it's bad..too bad.so, i think this an '80s movie in the XXI Century... AWFUL

When given a good script and actors, Ellis can make half decent, watchable movies, but I think he's basically doomed to make derivative, highly clichéd horror movies for the next ten years, with most of them probably going direct-to-video, before fading into deserved obscurity.Asylum is an annoying pastiche of past horror movies, drawing most of its influence from Wes Craven's Nightmare on Elm Street. It's populated by tired stereotypes (the jock, the nerd, the slut, the weird girl, etc) who dutifully recite their two minutes of back story prior to their grisly death. Yes, it's nice to find any degree of back story whatsoever in a low budget horror movie, but the writing is so terrible and the characters are all so annoying that I just wanted them all to just shut up.The special effects and gore were fairly well done, which might make up for the terrible writing and directing, if you're obsessed with slasher movies. If all you want out of a movie is to see annoying, stereotypical teens butchered by a ghost, then you could do worse than this movie, but I'm not sure why you would waste your time.

Terrifying from the opening scene, Asylum grabs you and locks you into a roller coaster of bone-chilling thrills. The story follows young Madison (Sarah Roemer) and 5 new friends (and one not-so-friendly Resident Assistant) as they arrive at Richard Miller College for Freshmen Orientation. Plenty of college hijinks provide a fun back drop for the soon-to-follow horrors. The new students quickly learn that their brand-new dormitory was once a mental asylum where teenage patients were tortured beyond belief by a brilliant, but sadistic psychiatrist, Magnus Burke. He's back, and bringing his new prescription… death.If you love jolting surprises and gruesome violence, then you will love Asylum. There are several scenes guaranteed to make you cringe, and plenty of "out-of-the-blue" frights. The acting is good enough, and the direction is pretty good for the genre. The dialogue is a little off, but the comedic one-liners make-up for it. Overall, this is a solid horror flick.

From director David R. Ellis (whose prior credits include "Final Destination 2" and "Snakes on a Plane") comes "Asylum," a psychological horror film in which a group of college students come to find that their campus was once the spot where a mad-doctor practiced his own twisted brand of medicine. A Freddy Krueger type whose patients eventually turned on him, the doctor still haunts the halls, preying on the students and tapping into their deep-seeded emotional scars.The film hinges on an assortment of clichés, but that's not to say that some enjoyment can't be milked from it. While you can see nearly every moment coming from miles away, the film gets by with a bit of style and energy, courtesy of Ellis. Its story is really "A Nightmare on Elm Street"-lite, but fans of the 80's franchise (as well as other similar films from the era) may just get some thrills from seeing a film pay tribute to or at least attempting to live up to its legacy (they'll also appreciate a role by Lin Shaye as the mother of one of the students).The true weakness of the film is in its paper-thin script and characters and its over-reliance on gross-out gore over suspense. You might squirm in your seat during a scene where a character gets his lips ripped off and his tongue cut-out, but you won't necessarily care about the character himself, which is always a bad thing for a horror movie. Also, the final act reaches some ridiculous territory and will no doubt leave your eyes rolling. Go into "Asylum" with low-expectations of some fluff-horror, and you might just appreciate what the film has to offer.