Psycho Ward (2007) Reviews

• Low Budget, Lower Writers

  C-Ant2009-12-20

  Slasher horror we've all seen before, but we've seen it better. The story is very simple, a bunch of teens led by Dr. Richard Magellan visit an abandoned prison, which the Doc believes to have been used by the government to conduct experiments using serial killers as guinea pigs. The Doc wishes to document the place and find out the 'truth'. They enter the prison and that's when people start getting bumped off. Despite its low budget the general filming and editing is quite good, some nice effects used in places, the gore scenes (plenty of them) are done well with no cgi, though most kills are off screen the results of the brutal attacks are shown and look pretty good. Unfortunately this is were the good stuff ends. The acting is weak, almost all the characters are weak and/or annoying - in fact the only 'likeable' character is 'Studs' and it seems like he was the character we're supposed to hate! The lead actor playing the doc is simply boring and virtually monotone. 'Sarah' is so annoying I wanted her to die in the first 10 mins, actually that goes for most of the characters. There is near zero back story or character development, the story pushes an expected twist - which doesn't happen and most annoying of all is that there is no answers, no conclusions! The door has been left open for a sequel, I really hope the people involved don't bother. Well filmed, good make-up, bad characters, crap story. 3/10

• A Waste Of $3

  madelinebiz2011-03-12

  When I saw this movie at Blockbuster I was expecting an extremely intense psychological thriller and based on the cover I thought I'd be pretty scared. I have never been so wrong. This was the biggest waste of 86 minutes of my life that I will never get back. I would rather watch grass die. All of the characters were extremely annoying, we know nothing about them and they are the most horrible actors I have ever had the misfortune to witness. The filming made me look at the box wondering if it was made in the 80's, but no, they just suck. Anybody more than 10 feet from the camera didn't look like they even had eyes. The gore scenes were either not shown or incredibly unrealistic, using what looked like ketchup as blood. Ways that the killer murdered his victims was illogical, a nail gun does not have enough power to make a clean hole in your skull...?? Plus, we have absolutely no idea why he is killing all of these random irrelevant people, who scream like 5 year olds in a school play. The only reason we kept watching was to make fun of the horrible lack of plot and acting skills. The only reason most people would watch it is if they were horny teenage boys that liked the two girls flashing in the first 10 minutes and hoping it would continue. To their dismay they were sorely disappointed. Why on earth would anyone put this out on the market or bother to get it rated? Why would Lionsgate or Blockbuster spend their money on this crap excuse for a movie? Needless to say, this was the worst movie I have ever seen, and it basically SUCKED. DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME.

• Lionsgate strikes again with low quality release

  HEFILM2010-01-07

  The abandoned location of the prison is decent. There is one very good effect involving a nail gun driving nails into a moving hand that is seamless, I don't know how they did it. There is one pair of nice looking breasts in the first few minutes of the film. There are a few nice exterior sunset shots. There are also about 4 good looking shots--none of which oddly are in Loinsgate's trailer for the film. That's it. Those are the good elements here. Super bad elements are the way over lit everything. It looks like old Scoop lights aimed at people. Acting is pretty bad but the writing doesn't deserve much better. Villain is stupid looking fat guy who almost trips coming down a set of stairs near the end. All the gore, other than hand effect is poor and editing doesn't help movie at all. Other comment about the generally very low video quality is true, have not seen shot on video stuff look this bad in a number of years. It is all nicely in focus though. Audio quality is super bad too, much post dubbing of noisy outdoor scenes early on, though once they get inside that stops and none too soon, it's like a foreign film before that, so much is dubbed. Lots of supposed Jump Scare moments none of which work. Padded credits at front and back to get the "film" to a feeble bare minimum lenght of 85 minutes. They did have a crane for some of the shoot but it's not very well used. This is barely passing grade film school stuff at best. So why does Lion'sgate continue to pick up stuff like this and put their name on it and hurl it at the horror audience? This one was finished in 2007 and only now in 2009/2010 getting released so maybe they bought it long ago or made a poor offer that the producer's had to eventually accept. Why why why? Because they don't care or understand horror films they just push the crap out there, I guess they are counting on the increasingly bad SAW films to retain some fan base. Only THE ASYLUM puts out stuff with so much contempt for the fans and Lionsgate should know better. It's really a shame on them as a company to show now pride at all in their output. The producers of this made a pretty amateur movie, they may not know how to make a better movie, but Lionsgate produces theatrical films and inherited a large library of films of some note. It's shameful. Unless it's a SAW film anything with Lionsgate's name on it is a rip off for fans and also hurt the market, and those SAW films are going downhill fast.

• this movie was absolutely awful

  gdenty2010-01-04

  After watching this moving, I would really appreciate having those 86 mins back to do something useful with like sit on the couch and have a nap. To begin with there was almost no character background, you are left wondering what is exactly going to be the point of this. the beginning girl and guy are basically irrelevant. The camera work looked so low budget looks like they borrowed a their moms first digital camera with a whopping 3 mega pixels. the acting is so incredibly bad, it hurt just watching it. the special affects were terrible especially when it came to any gore scenes. the character Sarah was so ugly, and annoying i actually could'not wait for her to die. the scenes which were suppose to be intense and scary were a joke. if you were 5 years old you might find this scary. The simple fact they left the ending to be a possible sequel is just a bad idea, my final thoughts, don't waste your time watching this film.

• Unintelligent, unoriginal, uninteresting - PASS

  Shattered_Wake2010-11-03

  Looking for answers about the "Pandora Project," a rumoured medical experiment that used prisoners and mental patients as test subjects, a crew of "urban explorers" head to Black Creek mental hospital. Once there, as expected, the members of the group begin to drop off, one by one, in gruesome fashion. Let's be honest. . . it doesn't take much to make a reasonable slasher flick. Reasonable writing, actors, and direction are not necessities when it comes to this subgenre. Some of the most entertaining slashers out there were fairly unimpressive in the technical aspects. However, when a film fails in these departments and manages to deliver nothing else to make up for it, there is nothing for the viewers to grasp on to and enjoy. This is what happened with 'Psycho Ward,' the straight-to-video release from Lions Gate. As far as positives go, there's not much to say. The location is pretty cool, but it's hard not to make an abandoned mental hospital look creepy & cool. Also, another visual bonus comes from the gore & makeup FX which were somewhat professional-looking, even if the subpar direction, cinematography, and editing ruined some of the quality of the effects. Sadly, that's about it for anything worthwhile in the film. It's not original. It's not well written. It's not well made. Most importantly, it's not very much fun, which is just about the worst thing that can happen to a slasher filck. Final Verdict: 2.5/10. -AP3-