Fear creates a desire to control everything around you, including your future. When screenwriters run out of ideas, they resort to the centuries-old method of stealing. Theft is not an apple or a pear in the market, but the theft of ideas. The scriptwriters themselves call this a borrowing or even cooler tribute to a particular picture. But here's the thing, homage is when you try to make a good quality film. Whether you have a budget or not, it's important that you at least try. And when you approach the film as an opportunity to enrich yourself, it is clear that even if you try to re-shoot Gone with the Wind or the Terminator, you will get a talentless craft. Today’s guest is a good example of that. So this is a "phobia."
Our story unfolds at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. At a time when medicine, and especially psychology, felt an unprecedented rise. And as the main character, or rather, the heroine is a psychologist Leslie Parker, who herself suffers from a number of psychological traumas, but is going to treat people. Yeah, Dr. Parker's patients are doomed. But to add fuel to the fire, the young and successful doctor Sigmund Freud acts as a friend and partner of our heroine, and as patients of Dr. Parker are thieves, scoundrels, madmen and one vampire. They told Dr. Parker to invite Van Helsing, but no, you see, it's too expensive! Let him clean up the mess himself.
You know, I can forgive a lot of directors, but I cannot forgive the use of real historical personalities in the hope of attracting as many potential viewers to my film as possible. Sigmund Freud with a fake beard in a bad horror movie. A director has to have iron balls to do that. Or he just didn't know what he was doing. I believe in the second one more readily. But I was a little distracted.
So, do we have a respected professor who is constantly gesticulating, glaring at others and talking outright nonsense? You know, I understand everything, but the fact is that the time and place of action was chosen in the dense 1885, and there the people were simple and the way the professor behaves can be considered that he is not all right with his head and put a respected member of society in a house with soft walls. Ultimately, Lovecraft ended his days like that. The strangest thing about this situation is that this professor could not recognize a girl in one of his students! Yes, I agree, this has been played out repeatedly, but in Mulan and Hussar Ballad, the main characters were more like pretty boys than girls, and in the same film, facial features and intonation let the heroine down and only thanks to a leaky scenario can one explain that none of the learned husbands could recognize the girl in the suit of a man. But the most interesting thing is not even that. The most interesting thing is that this female scientist gets permission to use hypnosis on patients who are suspected of murder. How a boy from another city could get permission for such an adventure is unknown. Why the police were not on duty near the place where the treatment was carried out, ready to come to the rescue, if such a need arises, we also do not know. How can we not know why people who think they are intelligent and educated people from the very beginning could not recognize the killer, when I understood the background already in the thirtieth minute of the film? Apparently, the director coupled with the screenwriter, thought that in those days professors were people who are able to write without mistakes and were a little smarter than stool. Is Sigmund Freud presented in the film as a complete profane?
As for the frightening atmosphere, there is no mention of it. Heroes simply walk from side to side, sometimes have meaningless conversations, and sometimes disappear without a trace only to be found dead in a closet in half an hour. There is no proper musical accompaniment, which could at least slightly smooth out the sharp corners. What is it? I'm not sure if it was music or if the howls I heard came from the street. It doesn't matter.
Mmm, what? Ah, actors. What can I say? These people were recruited from a mental hospital to play healthy people, which they do with varying success. The actors are constantly gesticulating, twitching, confusing emotions, and sometimes even look at the camera lens with an absent look and expect that they will drool from their mouths. A heartbreaking sight, yes.
Summing up, I want to say that before us there is a fairly frequent guest in the world of cinema, namely, film debris. A film devoid of any artistic value and all it can do is drive the viewer into a coma. So my advice to you is to spare your time and nerves and do not watch this movie, thank you.
1 out of 10