Hell Asylum (2002 Video) User Reviews

Not too good

[stephendellabarca · 2/10 · 23 November 2005]

This movie is all over the place. What the heck are those grim reaper dudes anyway. Apart from eating peoples insides and whacking up people's faces and dropping bones all over the place. It's junk and the title music sucks. A typical low budget crappy movie. Apart from the usual small time actors and a hardly known producer company what has this movie got going for it.

Some of the acting is OK i'll give it that but the the movie has no plot.

Nothing

Stephen Dellabarca

Below average

[poisonrock29 · 4/10 · 13 November 2003]

Hell Asylum has a similar storyline to HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL, but don't expect it to be as entertaining. A group of young girls enter a haunted house in participation in a reality television show, if they last the night, they will recieve a million dollars. That's the whole story. Hell Asylum even plays like a reality television show by filming from the diffrent cameras located in the house, which are all black and white and often very snowy, add to that, the house is always in darkness so we get some confusing hard to watch footage of the girls getting killed. The death scenes were very bloody but it was hard to tell what was happening because of the darkness and snowy picture. On the plus side the characters were very interesting, each girl had a very diffrent personality to the next and i would have been more interested in seeing how they got along some more, but the girls began getting killed one by one before they even had a chance to settle in. My rating 4/10.

Oh dear...

[JohnZoidberg · 2/10 · 25 July 2005]

Really not entirely sure what these guys were thinking...

I mean, I give them credit for making the film, but a little more attention to the script and less on the gore. All those guts really just looked like a spaghetti accident.

Seriously, why would a guy who wants to make this show and has gone to the trouble of preparing the whole building wait until the actual day to pork his girlfriend. It just isn't clever writing, and while I'm at it, what's the point in having 5 different girls and establish their different characteristics and personalities if you only use it to establish that one hates bugs, let's throw bugs on her. The whole video interview section was painfully long and in the end proved largely irrelevant. Sure, you're showing the viewer their personalities, but we get that later on...

If my hair wasn't already falling out I'd pull it out through frustration...

On the bright side, there's no sequel.

Low-budget horror at it's most irritable and unimaginative worst

[lost-in-limbo · 1/10 · 25 March 2005]

A group of girls enter a TV reality show, where they have to spend time in a haunted house doing specific tasks to win 1 million dollars, though no-one counted on real spirits killing the crew and contestants.

Well the plot idea is right out of The house on Haunted hill (1958)- but really this is nothing more then watching stunning young women get butchered to death and eaten by ghosts... literally! Well the idea for this film took no brainstorm.

The filmmakers came up with an incredibly dull and unimaginative film, that had trouble keeping my full interest and the running time is only 67mins! The script was tripe and extremely stilted, as you just groan at the clichés and stupid lines you hear and the acting... geez it was awfully over the top, no charisma or talent evident.

The blood and gore was just laughable- I just thought it was over-used and ridiculously lousy… was that the end of a mop or noodles covered with fake blood as intestines?

The plot, where did it go? If you start off with one, you might as well finish it off. It's starts with introducing us to the TV reality show, the crooked host/director, the 5 female contestants and the history of the haunted place- but after this it goes off the rails, as you don't know what the heck is going on? There are no explanations why the ghosts are killing people, while the characters one by one just go and get knocked off. The characters were the usual one-dimensional stereotypes- but hardly engaging to care what happen to them. While the house itself is hardly atmospheric or chilling and the lighting was so dim it was hard to tell what was going on.

The camera work was pretty horrid, I think that they thought it was quite inventive- but it's not. The ghosts were 'fairly' eerie, well more the way they move and appear- but there nothing more then a person wearing a black cloak. What the film sorely lacks is tension and good scares.

Some of those interviews with the contestants to see why they are participating in this reality game are pretty ironic in what we are viewing in this piece of crap. While the satirical ending on the media producers was really platitudinous.

This film wasn't enjoyable enough to be entertaining, if you think it would be so bad it would be funny... it's no fun, it's a pretty miserable viewing.

Though it might be a REALLY cheap amateur film, that's no excuse for a lame story, script and a lack of suspense and chills.

What a turkey!

Meh

[Dr. Gore · 12 March 2005]

*SPOILER ALERT* *SPOILER ALERT*

I bought this video for four bucks. Five lovely ladies check into the Hell Asylum. They are there to play the "Chill Challenge". It's a reality based TV show. If you get scared, you're booted out. The producer has rigged the house to scare the ladies and make a few bucks. Little does he know that the Hell Asylum is actually haunted! MOO-HA-HA! Haunted by what you ask? I don't care! MOO-HA-HA!

Well, this was lame. Not that I expected too much mind you, but this was pretty ho hum. "Hell Asylum" is one of those run of the mill B-movies that is instantly forgettable. Soon it will recede to the back of my B-movie watching memory, never to be heard from again. So you got five lovely ladies in the Hell Asylum and yet not one of them can lose their shirt? Tsk. Tsk. For shame. No nudity. Cheap gore. It has all that and less.

It's pointless to criticize such a lackluster piece of blah like this. It doesn't care. I don't care. No one cares. It's unanimous. Let's all just move on and let this sleeping dog lie.

one of the 5 worst movies i've ever seen

[eduroca · 2/10 · 19 March 2004]

i can't believe there are actually people who will give "hell asylum" a 10/10. you can try to praise that these people made the movie on a low budget and in about 10 days of filming, but that's it. the acting is sooo bad, the camera work sucks, the lights work is awful except for two or three details, and you miss most of the action because it's too dark, the ghosts are laughable at and you end up hating every and each of the five contestants. leaving aside that's it's a "house on the haunted hill" rip-off, "hell asylum" is plain boring and you only laugh with that guy who is supposed to play the fake ghosts of the house to scare the chicks. in my opinion it might have been a little more decent if at least they had tried to find a set which resembles more a haunted house, but the place looks like a high school and you wonder where those stupid teenagers might have been hidden. nice try, but i'm sorry, i don't buy this. i gave it a 2/10.

Tripe

[an_irish_scotsman · 1/10 · 30 August 2006]

It's amazing to me that this was allowed on DVD at all. It's just that bad. The plot, that there is a reality TV game-show thing with models who have to go into haunted rooms and such does admittedly have potential. Unfortunately, that potential was not carried out. To be honest, my favorite part was the credits, and that's simply because they at least looked halfway professional, unlike the rest of the movie. The actors prove that you can't just pull someone off the street and expect them to be good, although the actors aren't entirely to blame, as there is no one who could pull off the hackneyed clichés of the characters.

The music was just annoying, the gore looked more like spaghetti and that stuff in tapes (the black stuff) than someone's insides, and frankly, I find it hard to believe that this was made by someone who wasn't above the age of 18. The only good feature this 'film' (and I use the term very very loosely) has is that it did indeed leave me feeling sick, but for all the wrong reasons.

Scare Factor Zero

[unsung_super_hero · 1/10 · 11 December 2004]

A friend bought this film as part of a collection of ten horror films for ten dollars. I was recently at their house and had the terrible misfortune to view it.

Hell Asylum is a hideous, hideous film with a blatantly ripped-off storyline from House on Haunted Hill.

Five beautiful stereotypes -the skank, the girl next door, the goth, the wannabe star, and the all attitude black chick- are sent to a haunted house as part of a reality TV show, and meet several not scary ghouls. The cloaked monsters provide no thrills, and the ending will have you either laughing or sleeping.

This film is bad. So bad it seems as if a film student made it just to pass film school (they wouldn't have passed) on a budget of $500. (Including actors' salaries.)

The awful, horrendous acting would be more suited in a Porn film and the 'gore' in Hell Asylum consists of 'intestines' which resemble spaghetti.

If only the Mystery Science Theater 3000 guys were still around to serve it the justice it deserves.

Watch out for the TV producer who bears a strange and unsettling resemblance to Martin Sheen. Except for the fact that Martin Sheen can actually act.

The scariest part of this film is the realization that someone actually paid money to have this produced.

Save your money at the video store and rent the Ring instead.

You'd have more fun spending the night in a real asylum

[boyinflares · 1/10 · 27 May 2006]

You would have more fun spending the night in a real asylum as opposed to watching this straight-to-video rubbish. Without a doubt one of the worst films I have ever seen, the acting is terrible, the production extremely bad (it looks like a documentary, even though it is sort-of supposed to be, it still shouldn't look as poor as it does), poor sound quality, cheesy gore, and as for trying to merge "The House on Haunted Hill" and reality TV into one movie. Well. That was a bad idea from the start. How I could even write as much as I have written for this film already is beyond me. Seriously, watching this film is utter torture unto itself.

Dreadfully dull dreck from director Danny Draven.

[BA_Harrison · 1/10 · 17 February 2008]

Five attractive women compete in a reality TV show for a prize of $1m; in order to win, they must spend a night in a haunted building (wired up with numerous CCTV cameras) where they must confront their deepest fears.

'You have been forewarned' it says on the cover of my DVD.

Let me tell you that if the box for this pile of crap had a ten foot tall neon sign attached to it reading 'This film is awful', you will not have been forewarned enough. If, when you opened the box, a voice screamed 'Put this film down and walk away—you're wasting your life watching bilge like this!', it wouldn't be a strong enough deterrent.

I suggest that before being permitted to view this abomination, potential candidates should be psychologically tested for several weeks to ensure that their minds are strong enough to handle the dreadful direction, amateurish acting and risible special effects. They must be made aware that viewing such material will possibly be harmful to their mental wellbeing. An intensive course of watching extremely bad films would need to be completed, after which, the person should be informed that Hell Asylum is much worse.

Only then will they have been adequately forewarned!

Director (and I use that word in the loosest possible sense) Danny Draven takes an extremely derivative script (House on Haunted Hill, anyone? My Little Eye?) and a no-talent cast (only pretty blonde Stacey Scowley is forgiven, thanks to a cute set of dimples), places them in a truly unremarkable and unconvincing locale (asylum?... it looks more like an abandoned school), and delivers a horrible mess bereft of scares, decent gore (the FX make-up is bargain basement stuff, with some scenes featuring intestines that look like spaghetti), or female nudity (one girl runs around in her undies—but that's it!).

This is utter dross that fully deserves lowest rating possible.

Take the 50 cents you made from my Netflix view and buy some talent

[ismellfish · 1/10 · 11 October 2010]

This movie is unbelievably bad. There was nothing good about it in the least. Let's list the stupidity:

1. Haunted house built in the mid-1800's? Are you kidding? It looked like a school built in the 80's. Scout your locations better.

2. The scare challenges - locking some chick in the closet? And then letting her out after 2 minutes? The winner of this "reality show" was to get a million bucks. For that? At least make your premise believable.

3. The gore was noodles covered in fake blood. When Amber dies, the ghouls are merely moving it around on her belly. Poorly done.

4. Can you really kill someone and then stick your hand in the back of his head to make him talk? Should I have even asked this? 5. Is it just me, or did the actor playing Max's brother not have a beard in the beginning? He sure did have one when he died. I've heard of five o'clock shadow, but that's a little extreme.

6. The jerky cameras with static intermingled with the shots does nothing but annoy.

7. Stinging social commentary from Martin Sheen's not-famous brother in the end. Did he lose a bet?

All in all, not even worth watching stoned.

I like it

[rrox78 · 10/10 · 25 April 2003]

I think this is a well done horror flick. It had my two favorite Full Moon actresses :DEBRA MAYER and TANYA DEMPSEY, although I must admit that SUNNY LOMBARDO steals the show as the goth chick. The acting and the effects were good, the plot moved fast enough and there were a couple of good moments.

Far more fun than it should've been

[kannibalcorpsegrinder · 7/10 · 2 October 2022]

Attempting to sell a new reality TV show, a producer and his crew bring a group of models to an abandoned asylum to begin taping the pilot for a reality TV show exploring the facility, but when they begin to die the group realizes the stories about its haunted history are true and try to leave alive.

Overall, this was a decent enough and somewhat enjoyable effort. One of the better features here is the rather impressive setup that starts everything going at the asylum. With the opening introduction to getting the contestants onboard and their arrival at the abandoned building which is all alongside the rather enjoyable backstories given about the various histories associated with the location. While completely cliched and not in the slightest bit original, it gives this one just enough to set the right tone here to get the later confrontations feeling that much more enjoyable. Those setpieces come off rather well and give this one quite a lot to like. The series of initial encounters within the asylum involving the ghosts taking out the workers setting up the facility and then the first disqualified contest offer up some nice scenes to get it going, while the ambush in the control room gets to showcase their aggression and ferocity rather well. Other encounters with the contestants, from a maggot shower down in the basement to a confrontation in the furnace room involving a highly surprising and unexpected victim, have a lot to like showing some enjoyable action and gore with the creepy-looking ghosts getting into the action. These all manage to hold this one up as there isn't much wrong here but it does have some minor issues. The main factor against this one is the film's setup that drives it forward which is curiously done in an unconventional matter here. Rather than delve into the group venturing out on their own and coming across the ghosts and spirits by themselves, the film decides to keep everyone in a single room and then bring them out one-by-one to do their mission. This leaves the film to be quite off-putting by having the girls out of action for large sections of time either sitting around doing nothing or focused on the other participants without cutting back to see what they're doing so you almost forget they're there which is a rather distracting way of going about the show. That also brings about the other factor in how this one manages to feel as slow as it does despite being as short as it is. With only the barest glimpses of who the girls are, what they're doing, and the purpose of the visit in the first place, it has so little time to explore anything that it all feels like a blur before moving on to the next featured encounter. With the majority of the girls out of the picture by keeping them confined to the meeting room as this does, it takes a while before getting to some of the performers which is rather disappointing. Combined with the general cheapness on display, these are the few distracting features of this one.

Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

Woeful & unbelievable haunt flick with bad acting

[blackhole1001 · 1/10 · 9 April 2005]

I want 67 minutes of my life back! This is quite possibly THE worst film I have ever seen. What made it so terrible you may ask? Shall we start at the beginning where sound quality was so bad that it was near impossible to hear what any of the woeful actors were saying. There was obviously NO editing, as character development scenes were painfully long and pointless (although a good opportunity to make a cuppa!). The "guts" as many others have mentioned, was merely leftover spaghetti which was smeared about on an unharmed stomach, or at best a few chunks of jelly in tomato sauce. And the broken legs, please guys, you've got to be kidding? The "5 hot chicks" were average, and if you're hoping for a bit of skin you'll be disappointed, as the best on offer is a passably attractive girl in skimpy shorts, fleeing for her life for about 10mins at most. The plot is barely existent, the filming dreadful, and there are simply not enough negative adjectives to describe this film. I love B grade movies but this was bad beyond funny, and, OH MY GOD!!! Did someone mention that this was made with "just" $35000 US? That would have to be the most destructive use of money since the "eat a tapeworm to lose weight" campaign in the 60's! I will finish by saying, I would rather eat the contents of my cat's litter tray than see this movie again.

What a pile of puke. (Possible spoilers!)

[LauraH2477 · 3 January 2004]

Hell Asylum is the story of a down-on-his-luck TV producer who want to make a reality show about hot chicks being forced to face their worst fears in a haunted mental hospital that was closed down long ago. He gets permission after groveling for Joe Estevez for a while, and then he picks the girls and brings them to the asylum, where everyone gets picked off one by one by ghosts in black hooded robes who pull spaghetti out of their victims chests and eat it. That's pretty much the whole movie...idiots doing the stupidest things possible and annoying you to tears before they get slaughtered in disgusting, cheap, fake-looking ways. It's only like an hour long, which is good since it's so worthless.

Boy is this awful. I was expecting it to be awful but I at least hoped it would be awful in a fun way. But this is just no fun at all, it's mean-spirited, ugly and dull. The characters are unlikable and stereotypical and you just want to punch them. There's the Sassy Black Chick (the first to die, of course), The All-American Blonde, the Slutty Blonde, the New-Agey Goth Chick, and the Ambitious Wannabe Star. They are all completely annoying and unsympathetic. You just spend the whole movie waiting for them to get picked off. The "Asylum" looks like a high school and isn't scary at all. The ghosts are laughable. Just don't bother watching this, it's crap.

Garbage

[charleswright805 · 1/10 · 17 March 2005]

I can honestly say that this is the worst movie I've ever seen.

No real story, no interesting characters, rotten effects, no explanation for what the villains want. At the end I was thinking, 'what was the point?' I have seen other movies I didn't like for one reason or another, but most of them had at least some good points. This has none. It was just a series of death scenes, with no logic or reason. It has a bunch of hooded ghouls running around killing and eating people with nothing on where they came from, why they do what they do etc. It could have been a decent movie done properly, but this was a waste. A complete waste of everything.

Really Bad

[huggy_bear · 2/10 · 14 September 2003]

No kidding, this was really bad!! Not even one bit thrilling, and the acting, it sucked as well. I have come to realize now that, if it has Full Moon on it, it will suck!! Now I know, and I will be aware of this fact. Back to this garbage though. Really stupid reality show idea of having these "hot" chicks stay all night in this old halfway house for a million dollars. Really lame acting and really lame "ghouls". Not enough words to describe how bad this sucked!!

House on Haunted Hill remake

[lastliberal · 3/10 · 20 July 2008]

Hey, I've got an idea. Let's put five luscious babes in a haunted house and pay the one who lasts $1 million. Oh, we won't waste any time having then undress or anything like that, and we'll include a sex scene that is off camera. It'll be a reality show hit - I guarantee it.

So, we bring in the girls and lock one in the closet, and pour bugs on another, and then the ghosts who inhabit the house will rip them up and we have blood and bones all over the place. They still don't show us anything, and all they basically do is whine and scream.

If you are going to rip off another movie, at least show us something original. Not even scary.

Only Full Moon would rip off MTV

[My_Nymphetamine · 3/10 · 23 January 2005]

Yes, that's right. America has gotten so low we are copying MTV smut as possible entertainment. Remember Fear? The MTV reality show where contestants get a bunch of money if they make it through the night in some haunted place while cameras role and video tape them being scared witless? The show was short-lived, but stylishly creepy. (Which is probably why MTV canceled it...)Same premise here, just executed horribly.

The gore is of fake it's pathetic. I'm talking watered-down ketchup for blood, ramen noodles for guts. One wonders if they raided their kitchen cabinets to supplement the budget. Deaths occur either off stage or at hyper-speed, presumably to look more realistic. How else could you get away with leftover Chinese passing as your intestines? I wasn't expecting much of the acting, especially from Full Moon. Don't get me wrong, they make great campy movies, but sometimes one can really see where the casting couch was pushed in there.. Tanya Dempsey is as pleasant as a walrus with hemorrhoids, which is an improvement over most of her performances. The chick that plays Stacy is so annoying you gasp with relief as she is being torn apart. The only bright spot here is Sunny Lombardo as the requisite goth girl. She had a bit part in Ted Bundy, and is proving to be a genuine presence.

If you want something to giggle over popcorn and beer, pop this in, but don't expect much. Even them I'm not sure you won't be disappointed.

Another Grade B (as in Band,Charles)Horror Flick

[JamesEGuidry · 1/10 · 22 February 2002]

I am a horror movie addict,so I will always spend $4.00 to rent a slice of "horror-cheese",especially something from FULL MOON entertainment. The movies produced by Charles Band (including DollMan & Toxic Avenger) are sure to be bad and sure to make you laugh (at it!).This movie was sooo bad it made me feel sorry for Latex.What happened to the good F/X artists?This movie showcased Raman Noodle.The editing was "Blair Witch" like...it was obvious the director tried too hard to do something so 2 years ago.Of course the acting is among the worst attempts in film history.This movie had 3 decent reasons to get produced- 1)the "reality TV" idea 2)the key in the closet 3)the fact that NO idea gets turned down by anyone submitting a script to Charles Band/FULL MOON entertainment

I'm gonna start on my script now,see you in the midnight features!

Gorefest, and not much else

[PeterZ · 4/10 · 27 March 2002]

I am pro gore, or I would not have rented this movie. I applaud the marketers of this film, for the fact that it was available on DVD at my local video store means that someone made money off of this film. I do not know what full moon was thinking, but this has to be the dullest title ever associated with them. Not campy, not funny, not scary. The first DVD I have rented and felt I should have been PAID to watch.

Eeehhh...

[cursive_iz_king · 4/10 · 6 January 2005]

This movie wasn't bad for a movie of this style and budget. The characters weere all pretty narrowly drawn, but hey... what can be expected? The gore was pretty good. The backstory as to why the house is haunted is all but forgotten as soon as it is introduced, and the kills have NOTHING to do with the violence. This movie is Nowhere near 80 minutes either, it clocks in at 67 minutes by the beginning of the credits. This movie would have been much more effective if it had taken a few more notes from the MTV show Fear, which it seemed very similar to. It was OK, though. All in all a very forgettable movie that is OK to waste a bit of time if you are so inclined. About a four out of ten. Maybe opt for the much more enjoyable $la$her$ if you want a better low budget horror film.

Not bad, not bad at all.

[FrightMeter · 10/10 · 5 March 2002]

This movie was MUCH better than I expected it to be. It's not an Oscar worthy or even theater-release worthy, but for a direct-to-video horror flick, I found it quite entertaining. The concept is very well done. A desperate producer has an idea for a new reality television show in which 5 hot babes, for lack of a better term, try to survive a night in a reportedly haunted insane asylum. The one who survives will win a million dollars. Sound familiar yet? It doesn't take much guess work to figure out the rest of the plot: the asylum is indeed possessed by the spirits of the previous owners dead wives (a background story that I found quite creative and interesting in itself) and the begin to kill off the girls and producers in some pretty bloody, gruesome ways. I found the whole approach of seeing a lot of what happens through each of the girls cams like we were actually watching the show very effective, especially since at the bottom of the screen it says "Amber-Cam" or "Marti-Cam" when each of the characters go out to complete their tasks. Overall, a very well done little film that should entertain the majority of the horror fans out there. You could do much much worse with other films that have even higher budgets! Just remember that you are viewing a direct-to-video film, then sit back and enjoy!

It is a horror movie, I'll give it that.

[stormruston · 6/10 · 17 October 2005]

My 15 year old daughter said its fear factor while watching this movie was a 1 out of 10, but after it was over it climbed to a 4 out of 10.

I don't know if that means anything, but that is what she said about this low budget b movie.

These movies are not about the story, they are about the gore.

This one tried hard to be gory but that was some of the worse(but entertaining )gore effects I have ever seen. The character having her stomach eaten by the apparitions? It looked like wool and red goo was just placed on her stomach and the apparitions merely moved it around.

The fire place scene? The bones that dropped out of the girl after she was pulled up were all femurs, she had FOUR of them !! Still, it was pretty fast paced, in your face bad and campy so I can't help myself...I recommend it!

Little plot, little acting, lots of fun.

NO IMAGINATION IN KILLINGS

[nogodnomasters · 3/10 · 6 May 2019]

This is a low budget version of "The Task." 5 babes are locked in a genuine rigged haunted house and must spend the night and perform certain tasks based on their fears. The movie starts out with the producer begging for money to do the pilot. As he gets what he wants he walks out of the office to some great heavy metal swagger music, but there is no slo-mo swagger to go with the music. I mean how much would that cost?

The eventual killing of said babes lacks imagination. It is just plain slash and remove guts. No imagination in writing. The movie had potential, and if it was tweaked it would have been worth a view.

F-bomb, No nudity.