Featured DVD Review: Psychic Experiment

December 5, 2011

Psychic Experiment - Buy from Amazon

Psychic Experiment is a low-budget horror film that was made a couple years ago and is now getting released direct-to-DVD. As I've said countless times in the past, that tends to lower expectations. Is the film an undiscovered gem? Will it fail to stand out from the crowd? Or will it stand out for the wrong reasons?

The Movie

The movie begins with a series of newspaper headlines depicting the horrors that happened in a small town. When the credits end, we meet Dr. Cole Gray as he prepares to fly to his hometown, where he has been offered a new job, a job his girlfriend, Elspeth, doesn't want him to take. He is going to be working as a researcher at a facility called The Facility, which is located in the same seemingly cursed town.

We also meet a trio of bloggers, who are trying to uncover the mystery of the rash of disappearances, sinkholes and cancer diagnoses, that have plagued the town as of late. The police don't know what's going on, but rumors are that The Facility has something to do with it. One of the bloggers, Philip Anderson, discovers that 15 years ago a child molester, Joseph Webber, was sent to prison, but he was recently paroled and is living in the same neighborhood, which is highly unusual. The group plans to infiltrate The Facility and get the proof they need to expose what they are doing.

So what is happening at The Facility? Frankly, I have no clue. I'm 90% sure the people who made the movie don't know either. There are far too many characters, each with hidden ties to The Facility and hidden motivations that get revealed throughout the film. There are far too many storylines thrown together from corporate malfeasance, psychic experimentation, revenge, etc., but it combines into a mish-mash of ideas that never gel into something compelling enough to care about. In addition to the confused plot and too many characters, there is some poor acting by some of the actors plus weak special effects. The end result is a film that was difficult just to sit through.

The Extras

The extras are better than expected with an audio commentary track, behind-the-scenes, and deleted / extended scenes.

The Verdict

Psychic Experiment is a low budget film with too many ideas to get a firm grasp on any one of them. The DVD has better than expected extras, but even so, there are just too many better options out there to spend time and money on this one.


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