At best it's hammy, Hammer-ish fun, although it has none of the tension of Brad Anderson's underappreciated potboiler The Call, and none of the wit of The Ninth Configuration, which remains the best screen tale of lunatics taking over an asylum.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 26, 2015

This Victorian-set horror film can't help but seem a missed opportunity. It has the ingredients for a lurid and entertaining trip to the dark side.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 23, 2015

Stonehearst Asylum is a richly bonkers piece of Victoriana.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 23, 2015

The stuttering, episodic pace makes you wonder if they had half a mind on a miniseries. Where the other half went is really anyone's guess.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 23, 2015

You'll watch this supremely entertaining danse macabre with the broadest of connoisseurial smiles.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 23, 2015

A spirited gothic tale, played with welcome black humour.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 20, 2015

It's 'Shutter Island' in the Scottish Highlands with this initially intriguing, ultimately depressing Victorian-era madhouse drama.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 20, 2015

the clash between the utopian Lamb and his professional nemesis the regressive Salt also represents a dialectic about differing approaches to care for the mentally ill and other marginalised figures in society...

Full Review | Mar 2, 2015

Between its distinctly modern intelligence and razor-sharp plotting, Anderson's clever contraption matches the heights of Gothic grandeur that keep Poe held in esteem today.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 24, 2014

It may not be his worst film overall, but "Stonehearst" is Anderson's flattest film, a disappointingly shallow affair that wastes an opportunity to breathe life into a timeless Edgar Allen Poe short story.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 24, 2014

On the surface, Anderson seems to have all the necessary pieces for a surreal psycho pop. But the fear factor eludes him, leaving "Stonehearst Asylum" more insipid than insane.

| Oct 23, 2014

All involved deserve better, particularly Poe.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 23, 2014

Shockingly flabby ...

| Oct 23, 2014

If you accept the grandly Gothic insanity here, there's a lot of fun to be had.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 23, 2014

"Stonehearst Asylum" starts with the hysteria knob set at 11 and goes up from there.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 23, 2014

Stonehearst takes off, subverting genre expectations by turning the inmates into representatives of modernity.

| Original Score: B | Oct 23, 2014

This is a movie that is several cuts above your usual straitjacket thriller. Enter at your own risk.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 22, 2014

The implicit criticism of psychiatry without compassion makes this confection unusually filling. Vincent Price never had it so good.

| Oct 21, 2014

In the wake of the ostentatious atmospherics summoned by the likes of Shutter Island and American Horror Story: Asylum, the film feels unnecessarily restrained.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Oct 21, 2014

The lunatics have seldom taken over the asylum so literally, yet to so little reward, as in "Stonehearst Asylum."

| Oct 15, 2014