SICK HOUSE

[indianasmith]

This movie really wanted to be a creepy, surrealistic, mess-with-your head horror flick like THE RING.  Some of the use of vibrating, shifting imagery and half-seen horrors deliberately mimicked THE RING, in fact.  But the whole thing just failed to come together.  The idea was intriguing enough - a young American archeologist in London is excavating the cellar of an old hospital, which was an orphanage in London during the year of London's last great plague outbreak, 1665.  One of the orphanage doctors was either a Satanist, sacrificing children to the dark gods, or else a twisted madman performing experiments on his pitiful subjects . . . the back story is never really properly fleshed out.  But now she's opened a sealed chamber and stirred up his ghost, and she and four punk trespassers are trapped inside the condemned hospital building, with the evil spirit of the Plague Doctor stalking/possessing them . . .

This movie could have been so much better, but due to poor screenwriting it remains a disorganized mess of what could have been a pretty fair horror movie.  A shame, really.

[ER]

I'd never heard of this movie, but just for one second the description made me wonder if it wasn't loosely based on Clive Barker's short story The Life of Death, but, no, Sick House sounds nothing like it.

As I remember it, The Life of Death was among the better of Barker's tales, and is concerned with a woman in 1980's England who trespasses on the site of some construction and is the first person in 300 years to enter a sealed crypt full of victims of the 1660's plague outbreak. She then unwittingly, or semi-unwittingly, spreads the disease among society, but is herself immune to it. She convinces herself she is Death's beloved, and an instrument of death, and believes her secret admirer/stalker is Death in human form. (You know what they say about assuming, right?)

[KYGOTC]

Yea, but keep in mind that THE RING sucked large quantities of anus apples.

[indianasmith]

Sorry, KYGOTC , but the ring is one of my favorite horror films EVER!!!!  Different strokes, I know, but it was the first film in a long time that actually scared me.

[ER]

The Ring is one of my absolutely favorite movies of this decade. Not only is it scary but ever notice how beautiful some of its scenes are? Shots of flowing water, of sunlight in trees, rain against glass... Little Zen moments amid the sheer horror of its content.

[KYGOTC]

Sorry, KYGOTC , but the ring is one of my favorite horror films EVER!!!!  Different strokes, I know, but it was the first film in a long time that actually scared me.

I mean, sure, its cool if you like it. I just think it sucks. Im sick of movies trying to make little kids scary. I just didnt like it. Granted, a horse getting chopped up by a boat propeller is a little unsettling, it still overall was lame.

[quabrot]

Sorry, KYGOTC , but the ring is one of my favorite horror films EVER!!!!  Different strokes, I know, but it was the first film in a long time that actually scared me.

I mean, sure, its cool if you like it. I just think it sucks. Im sick of movies trying to make little kids scary. I just didnt like it. Granted, a horse getting chopped up by a boat propeller is a little unsettling, it still overall was lame.

I though The Ring was pretty atmospheric and good on the production level (Gore Verbinski is a hell of a director), but storywise kinda lame.  But same thing with the Japanese one.

But we're talking about Sick House, which I haven't seen.  The plot indiana described kind of reminds me of Death Tunnel, which is kind of interesting for a watch.