Hell Asylum (2002) (V)

Director:

Danny Draven

Writer:

Trent Haaga (writer)

Genre:

Horror

Tagline:

We Dare You to Make it to the Bloody Finale of this Motion Picture!

Plot Keywords:

Pretty Girl | Beautiful Woman | Blood | Death | Haunted Mansion

Cast

Debra Mayer	...	Paige
Tanya Dempsey	...	Amber
Sunny Lombardo	...	Rainbow
Stacey Scowley	...	Stacey
Olimpia Fernandez	...	Marti
Timothy Muskatell	...	Max (as Tim Muskatell)
Joe Estevez	...	Stan The Investor
Brinke Stevens	...	Head Spectre
Paul Darrigo	...	Elevator Guy
Devin Hamilton	...	Elevator Guy
Julian Ott	...	Cameraman
Austin Priester	...	Spud (as Charles Austin)
Matt Moffett	...	Ted
Aaron Brown	...	Spectre
Wayland Geremy Boyd	...	Spectre (as Waylan Boyd)

Also Known As:

Prison of the Dead 2 (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated R for violence/gore and language.

Runtime:

72 min

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Australia:MA (DVD rating) | UK:18 | USA:R

Company:

Full Moon Pictures

Trivia:

During the film, the character Rainbow is talking to another character, and she's utters the phrase "This is a prison of the dead, too." Prison of the Dead 2 was the name for this movie during production.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Something to Scream About (2003) (V)

Bad production... enjoyable movie

Danny Draven is a young direction that even when he has made a career directing no-budget b-movies, he manages to make them at least entertaining. His career seems to be on the rise after "Deathbed", a good effort that was produced by Stuart Gordon himself.

In this earlier effort, Draven tells another ghost story starring "Deathbed" star Tanya Dempsey. Taking elements of "House on Haunted Hill" and modern reality shows, we have five beautiful girls who enter a show named "Chill Challenge", where the contestants must endure a night in a "haunted house" in order to win a large sum of money. What they don't know, is that the house is really haunted, and flesh-eating specters will make the challenge a bit more difficult.

Now, this is definitely not a good movie, it has a production that is bad even for low-budget standards. Draven's direction is still a work in progress and it is obvious that many things were learned while making this movie. However, one thing that is worth to mention, is the superb performance of lead star Tanya Dempsey. For a newcomer to the genre she has everything that is needed to become the new scream Queen of this age. Her performance is what really makes the movie works and it saves the final project from being a worthless piece of b-cinema.

The rest of the cast is not that bad. Stacey Scowley gives a great performance too and the rest of the girls are not only beautiful, but also very convincing in their roles. The male cast is really a downer, but the girls really make up for it. Legendary Brinke Stevens has a small role in a blink-and-miss scene. Lovers of nudity will be disappointed but we still have a nice view of Dempsey in underwear.

Sadly, the great acting is probably the only good this movie has to offer as the rest of the movie is filled with troubles such as bad lighting and terribly bad gore. Draven's use of digital camera makes the movie look even worse as it seems that he had not mastered its use yet. While most of the problems seem to be due to the low budget, a lot can be blamed to the lack of experience of the crew.

Nevertheless, as the movie goes on it seems as if they were learning in the process as the beginning looks terribly bad compared to the end. Another thing is that the movie never gets boring, the script goes straight to the action and it never drags. For a simple ghost story that is truly an achievement, too bad that the rest of the aspect of the movie weren't up to the task.

Danny Draven has a brilliant future in horror as he showed in his most recent work, but this movie has really very little to root for. It is worth a watch for aspirant filmmakers and fans of independent films. It is not really as bad as some big budget productions out there. For a better Draven/Dempsey collaboration check out "Deathbed" instead. 5/10. Great acting... bad movie