What are the odds? After Dead Snow, this is the second "medical students go on holiday, only to stumble into a whole heap o' trouble" movie of the week? In this case, it Sienna (Lange) and her friends, who head to a hunting lodge, only to find themselves kidnapped by troubled physician Alexander Tatum (Lauchu), who carts them off to a highly-dubious medical institution run by Dr Hopkins (Prine). What goes on there isn't pleasant: human medical experiments, body-part harvesting and questionable teaching practices. All in an environment that falls somewhat short, shall we say, of the standards of hygiene one would normally expect from a health-care facility. Can Sienna escape? Or will she just become another box of spare parts? Well, actually there's no tension there, since the first time we see Sienna, she's staggering around the countryside, and she is then taken to hospital where a cop (London) interview her about the ordeak, which unfolds in flashback.
There is a big twist at the end, which I didn't see coming. Chris claims she did, but said she was "too busy trying to stay awake to mention it." I can see that as a possible problem since, especially in the first half, this is pretty talky stuff, in what appears to be an effort to make us care about the characters. Outside of Sienna, it doesn't work: at best, they're bland, at worst, actively irritating. However, once the film abandons all such niceties, and gets down to being straightforward torture-porn, it improves considerably. The most disturbing sequence is probably the training sequence where one of the victims is given to a doctor and told, "Keep him alive, no matter what we do to him." It ain't pretty, though neither is the breast-implant removal sequence. Of course, there is the usual faux-psychological explanation for why Tatum is what he is - daddy issues - but this can safely be ignored. It'll do to pass the time, while we wait for Shellter, which covered similar territory with far greater assurance, to get a release.
[The film was released on DVD by MTI Home Video on July 20th, is widescreen, and includes behind-the-scenes footage. For more information, please visit the MTI website.]
C+
[July 2010]
