Stonehearst Asylum

Dir: Brad Anderson

2014

**

Edgar Allan Poe’s short story ‘The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether’ probably isn’t as well known as the phrase it created; ‘The inmates are running the asylum’ – although it is often mistakenly referenced as being originally from the 1920 cult film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. There have been several adaptations of Poe’s work but there has yet to be one that has felt authentic and worthy of his words, Brad Anderson’s Stonehearst Asylum being no exception. It looks good but I’m afraid Anderson’s film just doesn’t have enough meat on the bone, which probably isn’t surprising, given the length of the original story and the length of an average feature film. It was always going to be a challenging story to adapt and stumbling through every cliché in the book was not the way to go about it. I expected much more from Anderson, a director whose debut horror I adored (Session 9), whose film The Machinist is one of the greatest modern cult films ever made and whose 2008 thriller Transsiberian is one of the best post-modern Hitchcockian films ever to be overlooked by the mainstream audience. His films have gone down in quality ever since. I guess Stonehearst Asylum looked like a commercial hit for everyone concerned, although I’m not sure any gothic horror of its ilk has actually done that well for quite some time, maybe even ever? It has an impressive cast; Kate Beckinsale, Jim Sturgess, Michael Caine, Ben Kingsley and David Thewlis but no one’s performance was that impressive. Kate Beckinsale had very little to work with, Jim Sturgess could have been replaced with a bowl of fruit and the performance would have been as good, Michael Caine just growls, Ben Kingsley is good but plays the same character he’s played a thousand times before and David Thewlis’ talents are wasted yet again on a two dimensional villain. Thewlis is a leading actor, not a supporting henchman. Kingsley is the star of the show but his character is nothing new. Nothing about the film is new, indeed, new life is not injected into the old story, only clichés and predictable twists. I doubt the film will discover a whole new generation of Edgar Allan Poe enthusiasts and I’m pretty damn sure Poe aficionados won’t be jumping up and down in admiration. I’m not sure the world needed Stonehearst Asylum after 2010’s Shutter Island either (which also stars Ben Kingsly in almost exactly the same role). It’s not macabre, it’s not remotely scary – or even the least bit creepy. The set pieces are pretty impressive but that is about it, the only thing it has going for it is its forgettability.