INSANITARIUM

Lily attempted suicide and is considered by doctors dangerous to herself, so she is committed to Dr. Gianetti's psychiatric hospital. Several months pass, and Jack, Lily's brother, has never managed to meet his sister; suspicious of this excessive state of seclusion, the young man decides to pretend to be crazy to get himself committed to the institute and find out what's going on inside. Soon, Jack discovers that Dr. Gianetti uses his patients as guinea pigs for experimental and unorthodox treatment methods. It is not easy to review a product like "Insanitarium", one of those objectively bad films that, however, on more than one occasion manages to elicit a smile of satisfaction. The film in question, written and directed by debutant Jeff Buhler, has the flaw of taking itself far too seriously, despite more than one narrative passage being so ridiculous and unbelievable that it makes you think about the author's real intentions. But let's go into detail. The protagonist of the story is a handsome thirty-year-old, poorly acted by Jesse Metcalfe ("My Boyfriend Is a Bastard"), who, to see clearly the dark activities of a psychiatric clinic, has the "brilliant" idea of pretending to be crazy to get himself committed. This happened in the first "Ace Ventura" in a far too similar way, but the intention of the film with Jim Carrey was anything but serious, whereas Buhler is convinced that having his muscular protagonist behave in public like a madman, and then act like Sherlock Holmes in private, is a device that can be taken seriously. Missed target! Then, how does Jack get himself committed to Gianetti's clinic? Simple, he goes crazy in a public park, the police arrive, and they take him, by chance, right to that private clinic, where he is immediately admitted without anyone realizing he is the brother of another patient. Is all this credible? Second missed target! Having arrived only at the beginning, the viewer is already pushed to press the STOP button on the DVD player's remote control, and the desire is even greater as the viewing continues, full of clichés and unfortunate ideas that make a mockery of all "asylum" cinema, from Jesus Franco to "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", and so on with a medley of mad doctors who couldn't be madder, sadistic nurses, wise madmen, aggressive madmen, sexy madwomen, and the more the merrier. All this for almost an hour, which in the long run also manages to bore. Then, the unexpected: the film changes, shows that, although it has little to say, it can do so with decency and a sense of humor. "Insanitarium" thus becomes in the final half-hour a feast of quality splatter, picks up the pace, and stages a few good ideas capable of drawing a smile of satisfaction on the viewer's face. Between cannibal meals, various mutilations, and even a "bloody" fellatio, one enjoys hectoliters of glucose syrup and a tight survivor-like rhythm, which at times reminds one of the video game "Resident Evil" and for some elements the apocalyptic diptych "28 Days Later" and "28 Weeks Later", from which it plagiarizes some instrumental motifs of the soundtrack. So, in the end, what to do? Fail or pass "Insanitarium"? Given the lack of proportion between salvageable footage and ignoble footage, as well as the easy labeling as a d.o.c. hack that the director can earn on his first try, one would lean towards a solid 4 on the report card. But since crazy cannibals who tear entrails left and right always have their appeal, let's raise the rating a bit, hoping that Buhler with his next effort can pay off the educational debts earned here.