credit: www.amazon.com
Director:
Michael Hurst
Cast:
Christine Taylor……….Amy
Shane Brolly……….Nick
Jerry O’Connell……….Lucas
Chloe Moretz……….Melissa Norman
Kane Hodder……….Homeless Demon
Anchor Bay presents Room 6. Written by Mark A. Altman & Michael Hurst Running Time: 94 minutes. Not Rated. Available: June 13, 2006
The Movie:
The film opens with Amy lying on an operating room table, she’s paralyzed but wide-awake and the doctors are about to operate. She’s frantic to try to get their attention and does. Then the nurse tells her “We know you’re awake.” And the doctor begins to cut… then she wakes up!
And the movie goes down hill from there. Generally, when you call something a horror film, you should put something in there that is actually scary. Just a though.
Amy has relationship issues. Her boyfriend, Nick, asks her to marry him and she says she’s late for work. After work on their way home they get in a terrible car accident. Amy seems okay, but Nick has a broken leg. Paramedics show up, load Nick in the ambulance, and take off not telling Amy where they are taking him. The other victims in the accident are Lucas and his sister. His sister is also carted off mysteriously. Together Amy and Lucas try to find their loved ones but they aren’t in any local hospitals.
As their search continues we learn that Amy has a great fear of hospitals due to some terrible thing that happened to her father in one when she was a kid. Also very strange things start happening to Amy, people start looking like demons and freaking Amy out.
Meanwhile, Nick is taken to this creepy evil hospital where nothing seems right. The nurses keep taking his blood and the other patients mysteriously disappear in the middle of the night. At one point Nick gets on his crutches to go find a phone and sees all the nurses getting naked and squiring the syringes of blood all over each other. Yeah.
The movie just keeps getting more and more ridiculous. Priests, cops and homeless people turn out to be demons, a little girl has all the answers and somehow Nick is able to call Amy from the evil hospital, which technically doesn’t exist. Truths are blatantly hinted at and eventually revealed making almost nothing in this movie a surprise. Nothing except the ridiculous “twist” ending that would make M. Night Shyamalan groan.
So many things in this movie don’t work. I can’t go into it too much without giving away all the spoilers but I was shaking my head and rolling my eyes for over half the movie. When you find out the truth about the terrible thing that happened to her father you’ve already known for like 30 minutes and the “twist” ending made me laugh out loud. They make the idea of fighting your inner demons vs. fighting real demons far too obvious.
And the acting! Christine Taylor is a good actress, she’s been in many good films, but none of her talent is seen here. Just about half her lines are just her screaming. You can tell Jerry O’Connell is having a good time, but again this is possibly his worst performance.
STORY: 3/10
ACTING: 3/10
LOOK/FEEL: 3/10
ORIGINALITY: 4/10
ENTERTAINMENT VALUE: 1/10
TOTAL POINTS: 14/50
FINAL SCORE: 3/10
The infamous Kane Hodder as the Demon Bum
The DVD:
The Video:
The film is presented in Anamorphic Widescreen 1.77:1. I don’t know if it’s the film or the transfer but this film looks kind of muddy.
The Audio:
This film is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround. The sound in this film isn’t all that, it really doesn’t take advantage of the Surround Sound.
Extras:
Hospital From Hell: When you see a movie as bad as this it’s hard to take the filmmakers seriously when they talk about how great it is. They are very proud that they made this thing for a million bucks. There are some interesting things in here about the demon make up and the car accident and stuff. If you enjoy the movie, you might get something out of this.
Audio Commentary with Mike Hurst & Mark A Altman: They say they looked at Jacob’s Ladder for the touchstone for this film. With that kind of amazing inspiration it’s a shame they couldn’t make this a better film. This is a typical commentary that is really only for someone who loves this film and wants all the insight the filmmakers have to offer.
Theatrical Trailer
Screenplay (DVD-ROM): If you want, you can read this awful script.
Previews: Demon Hunter, It Waits, The Fallen Ones, and The Masters Of Horror Series.
Score:2 /10
