(This review may contain spoilers).
I have some quite mixed feelings about this movie, I have to say. I did feel that one of the things this movie did really well, though, was the fact that the main character, Sawyer, got herself committed to the psychiatric hospital because she didn’t actually read what she was signing.
I thought the use of the camera angles was really powerful, as they allowed the movie to be really harrowing to watch.
I would have liked it better if this movie had spent a bit more time setting up Sawyer as an unreliable main character. Eventually, it just seemed to become a fairly stereotypical movie about a young woman trying to survive. I felt several tricks were missed in her interactions with the other patients.
I also felt there were intriguing secondary storylines that were just allowed to fall by the wayside. Many of the supporting characters weren’t really developed enough to allow me to care about them. In fact, all they felt like were supporters in Sawyer’s story.
This movie did build slowly and I did like that aspect, along with not knowing if what Sawyer was experiencing was real or all in her head.
There were some intense scenes, but also many that were gross and disturbing. For most of the movie, I found suspending my disbelief about much of the storyline hard to do. After all, it really didn’t seem to me like what the hospital was doing would last in the long term. There were a lot of holes that became apparent the closer I looked.
All in all, I felt this movie was one that didn’t really live up to its potential. There was quite a bit that was illogical and didn’t make sense even within the confines of that world.
To be honest, I don’t plan to watch this movie again any time soon. Or to buy it on DVD.
Ink of Blood 