Charming and brutal

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Seeing the business of this film, i am amazed how this film could not grab more money and audience?? I Really liked the plot of this movie right from the beginning. The lead cast had done splendid work with superb body language. All the time, it made us thinking for the next twist here and there. We could not help but watch this movie more than one time and of course with the same enthusiasm. I want to ask few things which i could not get clarity of as the end began approaching. For example, i am confused to know the time phenomenon when the clock stopped at 11.59. Were they all five actually had died at 12??. Was anna actually unconscious the moment she fell from the top floor and then she ran towards the main gate where she hit with the car of those teenagers?? Do those four teenagers really entered the orphanage or it was just all dream of anna??? What was the issue of that baby?

As a rule I tend to judge a film by watching it myself. Taking heed of reviews, I thought this one may be worth a go. The opening titles were correct for the middle ages, especially the bird-like masks which as said in the film were worn by plague doctors & beaks stuffed with herbs and spices to 'prevent' breathing in the disease.The film begins with the typical headstrong protagonist despite warning wanting to investigate a newly discovered vault in an archaeological dig site (old London hospital) that could be potentially a bio-hazard & is advised to stay away. Of course she doesn't, at the same time we see a bunch of London teenagers on a jolly for their friends birthday driving erratically - cue crash. On deciding to peg it from police they hot-foot it into the same (closed down) hospital as the protagonist. They all meet up and chaos ensues.Nothing particularly striking, entertaining for people who gravitate towards horror genre. A different plot from most, same clichés - judge it on your own merit.

A few years ago I saw a movie called Madhouse that was pretty good. Not as good as another similar one called Session 9, but still a fairly entertaining horror thriller about a mental institution. I expected something of the same with The Sickhouse, but I suppose it is meant to describe an orphanage from the late 17th Century that had been infected with the Bubonic Plague. We get a brief history lesson at the beginning of the movie about how the Plague swept through London in 1665, killing 15% of the city's population in a single summer. An American archaeologist thinks she has uncovered an ancient black cult involving priests and the plague victims, but she is brushed off by a British colleague, who is indifferent to her interest despite frightening revelatory evidence that she has uncovered. Public health, she says, sometimes has to be put before archaeology.Enter a car full of British punks, screaming through the streets in a stolen car and filming themselves using a stolen video camera. Before long, midnight strikes, they run over someone or something in the street and come skidding to a stop, and we cut back to Anna, the American archaeologist, who has somehow stumbled upon a buried 17th Century street.This is where I got lost, and I stayed lost for pretty much the rest of the movie. We see clocks striking midnight a lot, so clearly something happens at midnight, but it's never really very clear what it is. And what is the deal with the buried street? I guess the Plague was so traumatic that that just paved over the old streets and built modern London on top of it? I have no idea. Anna is a huge problem in the movie. She claims to have this huge historical knowledge (and also does that intolerable thing late in the movie where everyone is fearful for their lives and she is frantically giving history lessons), but is astonishingly clueless about how to handle the Plague. At one point, one of the characters is supposedly infected with the plague, so they put him in a wire cage and then Anna suggests that they all go wash their hands.Wow, all those primitive Londoners had to do was wash their hands! Think of all the lives that could have been saved!The movie soon leaves any story behind and descends into a shabby special effects display that reminded me of old Nightmare on Elm Street movies. And if the special effects weren't bad enough, they also throw in the "I don't think any of this is real" thing, so none of it matters anyway. The story, rather than having much of anything to do with a mental institution OR the plague, is about an orphanage in which a series of terrible thing happened to five of the orphans. Surprise, there are five characters in the movie and, as Anna explains, history "seems to be repeating itself."No reason is given but none is needed. This is standard, 9th grade creative writing. Now we have the catalyst that introduces "death's design" which was kicked to death with three Final Destinations and provides a weak drive for the rest of the movie. There is a romantic moment at the very end of the film that is spectacularly out of place and dissolves immediately any character development that might have come before, and like much of the rest of the movie, it ends with a small child whispering some utter nonsense to us. We are told that the plague doctor will live on forever, "and you being a malignant host, an infant herald of doom."What?!?Well, let me give you a little chronology. The Sixth Sense - 9-year-old boy sees dead people. Ghost Town - annoyed British dentist sees dead people. The Sickhouse - American archaeologist sees dead British people. That would be really interesting if the movies were released in that order...

This movie is about a haunted building, evil and trapped souls and possession. It takes place at night which is why it is so dark all the time. The camera work was bothersome at times because it was all over the place. The most gory scene was probably the one in the bath tub. The acting was well done. I like the way they used the building's floor plans to let you know where exactly the scenes are taking place in the building. I also liked the way you couldn't really tell if the person was possessed or not unless you really paid close attention or saw that tell tale sign. Overall I liked it. Sometimes hell is repetition. When someone tell you to stay out of a building till daytime......you better listen!