Patient Seven (2016)

I really enjoyed this film, mainly to see the wonderful Michael Ironside. His depth of character is spot on in this film, as a slightly demented psych doctor, or so we are to believe. Not even thinking of the title, I forgot all about "patient 7". I got so engrossed in each character, it slipped my mind. Alphie Allen's "killer" was a fun thing to watch. From the moment he curses at the children (and let's us understand what night it is, and why he chose to leave the blood on his face!). All in all, very pleasing film. I will point out however, a bit of continuity mistakes in the time line of the film. When Michael Ironside is reminiscing about his past and we see the scene of him as a young boy discovering the car, I was disappointed. If he had been imprisoned for 30-plus years, that car model wouldn't have existed! It would have been early to mid 1980s (since you see a smart phone being used by Alphie's killer, the film must be set in at least 2008 or higher). Also, the plastic water bottles they were drinking from didn't exist until well into the 90s.

Given that PATIENT SEVEN is a very low budget horror anthology, just above the level of an indie, and given that the material contained within it is entirely predictable without a single surprising twist, I was fully prepared to hate it. That I didn't is testament to the efforts of the cast members, who are far better than expected in a film of this type.Headlining the show is an aged Michael Ironside, who delivers a wonderful and convincing turn as a shrink whose job is to interview a series of mentally ill patients in order to discover the answer to a larger mystery. Each patient's story is told in flashback which is where the short horror films come in. The best one is British and features Alfie Allen and Hannah Tointon in a well-shot story. Despite the familiarity of the vampires and zombies and the like, Ironside's excellent acting sees this one through, successfully, to the finish.

Have you ever wondered what a movie would look like if you took 7 completely unrelated stories and stuffed them all into a single movie? Well, look no further. That's the entire premise of this movie.The stories themselves are actually quite interesting on their own but if you jumble them together like this they lose their magic. It just seems like sloppy storytelling to me: a doctor just barges into a mental institution and interviews six severely disturbed individuals. So the entire movie basically consists of nothing more than 1 on 1 interviews between the doctor and the patients and everybody's origin story.Disclaimer: The movie ends with a big plot twist which kind of undermines the entire narrative that led up to the event. I still don't really know how I feel about it to be honest. Just thought I'd give it a mention.

This movie set itself up to be great. It had me completely captivated for the first half or so but never delivered on anything. Well acted...decent effects and so much potential. The problem with this movie is that it takes you on a journey, and then just sort of leaves far more questions than resolutions. They could've taken this film in any number of directions and any of them would have been so much better than the route they chose to take. Basically this movie is a lot of segments without anything to tie them together or anything that would give you a feeling that it was worth the watch. I'm only giving this a 2 because the first half was quite enjoyable...but I'm literally angry now that I've finished watching it at how much wasted potential there was here. I don't remember the last time I've felt so let down by a movie that started out so well.