31 Days of Halloween October Horror Movie Challenge - Day 4: Stonehearst Asylum (2014)

 

Day 4 - Stonehearst Asylum (2014) Borrowed from OverDrive. 

“And make a miserable man out of a perfectly happy horse.”

In this period piece starring Kate Beckinsale, Michael Caine, David Thewlis, and Ben Kingsley, Dr. Newgate has just been brought on as the newest addition to Stonehearst Asylum only to find out on his first day that the inmates have taken over. He spends the rest of the movie trying to find a way to escape with a patient that he’s fallen in love with, Eliza Graves (Beckinsale), without letting the new director of the asylum, Silas Lamb (Kingsley) figure out that he’s on to their scheme. This was an interesting one, and, like What We Do in the Shadows, another movie that was not as much of a horror piece as I had thought it would be. It plays more like a gothic thriller in the vein of Frankenstein, From Hell, or Dracula, but without the gore. It’s big on atmosphere and gives a very surreal vibe as you see the lunatics run free. From that perspective, it's a very effective film. It does a fantastic job of setting up the characters which are played wonderfully by some well-renowned actors. They don't wait long to let you in on the scheme and the secret that the staff are actually the patients, and the best parts of the film are in seeing Dr. Newgate trying to delicately navigate the lunatics. The asylum itself is a great setting with that victorian gothic motif. Overall, I would say it's a better asylum story than season two of American Horror Story. Definitely unsettling, but not necessarily spooky or scary. In addition to the lack of creep factor despite the setting, they also embrace the time period’s view of women being prone to mental illness due to their anatomy. This gets leaned into heavily with Eliza, and they don’t ever really dispel the issue. I won’t give away anything major (not that there’s much to give away) for any who choose to check it out. Despite some great acting and character development, I can’t give this one a recommend.

Movie Count:

New Movies = 2

Total Movies = 4

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