Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

An Exercise In Nonsense

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

This movie started out really funny, but seemed to lose its sense of humor in the second half. The opening scene in the classroom, the diagnosis, and the beginning of the trials were all great. Then it felt like the movie became a conventional low budget horror. Brett was great as some sort of medical worker who was more interested in hitting on the teenager, and he had one of my favorite lines ever ("This is what we call...the good s---"). The lead actor seemed to be playing the early scenes with just the right balance of self-centered callousness, but seemed to drop the irony half way through. If they could have sustained the tone through the whole story, this might be one I would watch back. As it is, I would probably only watch the first few scenes if I ever queue it back up.

Being of pensionable age (well, not quite, but I'm over 30), I didn't come to Diagnosis: Death because of comedy team Flights of the Conchords. Though I had heard of FOTC before reading the other reviews for the film, I wouldn't recognize them if they walked past me on the street. No, I came to Diagnosis: Death because I like horror films and films from New Zealand. Consequently, the relative dearth of Conchords did not disturb me in the least, and I really enjoyed the proceedings--in fact I'd go so far as to say this is the best hospital-based chiller since Lars von Trier's The Kingdom. This is a smartly written, amusing, and occasionally spooky little film with an excellent cast, most notably Suze Tye as Nurse Ratched--er, Nurse Bates. As long as you don't tune in expecting an extended FOTC routine, you'll be well pleased with Diagnosis: Death.

Diagnosis: Death is set in New Zealand where English teacher Andre Chang (Raybon Kan) is diagnosed with a rare & terminal form of cancer, Chang is told he has less than three months to live but there is hope as experimental drug trials are currently being held. Chang volunteers to be a guinea pig & test the new cancer drugs, while in hospital he meets schoolgirl Juliet Reid (Jessica Grace Smith) who also has terminal cancer & is there for the trials. The two quickly form a close relationship but start experiencing strange hallucinations as they become convinced that the ghost's of previous patients are trying to tell them something...This New Zealand production was edited, co-written, produced & directed by Jason Stutter & I presume Diagnosis: Death was meant to be some sort of hip modern horror comedy full of references to pop culture, one-liners, medical gags & scary ghostly images. Well, it isn't. In fact I thought it wasn't funny at all & the entire concept of a straight comedy about terminally ill cancer patients just seemed wrong to me & I honestly do not believe cancer is a laughing matter but I guess we all have different senses of humour. I will say right now that I did not find one single scene in Diagnosis: Death funny or amusing or even slightly witty but I am sure some will. I guess Diagnosis: Death is also a slow moving drama as the friendship between two terminally ill cancer patients grow until Chang breaks the law & has sex with a schoolgirl, again not funny or clever & ever so slightly repulsive. Between the romantic interludes & unfunny gags there's also a ghost story here which is never really explained to any great degree, why did Nurse Bates kill her sister & her son again? Why did they get to come back as ghost's while no-one else did? Surely lots of people had died in that hospital so why wasn't the place overrun with ghost's? What significance did the mirror have? The final ten minutes tries to tie up loose ends as quickly as it can but it just felt empty. At 82 minutes long with the end credits taking up a couple of minutes Diagnosis: Death probably runs less than 80 minutes & even then it felt slow at times & the happy ending where Chang suddenly & miraculously recovers from cancer says it all. Keep watch as the end credits roll as after there's a brief extra scene at Bates funeral.The whole hook of Diagnosis: Death is that it stars the guy's from the comedy show The Flight of the Choncords but they have nothing more than cameo's so don't be fooled by the DVD packaging. The whole film has a competent but bland look, there's no real gore except a cut hand, a mouldy skeleton & a head impalement on a stool leg. The entire film takes place in virtually the same location & only features about three main character's that have anything more than a cameo.Filmed in New Zealand the production values are decent enough I suppose but it's still not funny or scary enough. The acting is mixed, Raybon Kan is just wooden & speaks with the same tone all the time while Suze Tye is quite good as the villain.Diagnosis: Death is a horror comedy drama that is neither scary, funny or heartfelt enough. That says it all really, while some will stick up for it I doubt many viewers out there will get much entertainment value out of this.

I deserve to have the word "sucker" tattooed on my forehead. I'd just finished watching season 2 of Flight of the Conchords and was in need of more. Stumbled across an advert for this film and immediately ordered it.Jemaine appears in precisely one scene (about 2 minutes) Murray appears in 2 scenes (about 3 minutes in total) Bret appears in 5 or 6 scenes as a peripheral inconsequential character.Truly awful pedestrian plot not worthy of a TV movie. I can only assume that the three starts of FotC got suckered into making this movie themselves.Really, don't bother with this. I gave it 3 stars and I think in retrospect I was being very kind. At that point I still had 20 minutes to go.