Review of A Cure for Wellness (2017) by Lovro H — 05 Mar 2017

A Cure For Wellness is directed by Gore Verbinski and stars Dane DeHaan as an executive of some sort of a Wall Street business company (I'm not too familiar with the terms used) to go to Switzerland to a wellness centre and bring another employee, Pembroke, back to New York.

Pembroke has seemingly lost his mind and doesn't want to ever come back, which makes Lockhart's, DeHaan's character, job even harder. Upon arriving to the castle where the centre is situated, he discovers not everything is as it seems and he goes to find a hotel to stay in, but gets in a car accident and breaks his leg.

Following that, he becomes a patient in the very centre he's supposed to investigate, giving him an inside perspective to everything going on behind the curtains. What follows from then on is 2 hours of pure dread.

Ever since the trailer dropped I was hyped for this movie. It looked like my kind of a movie and no critic could stop me from seeing it! I'm very pleased with the movie. The direction is the highlight of the movie, most certainly! The movie looks absolutely gorgeous.

The castle is stunning and there are so many scenes where we see the scenery around the castle and my jaw just dropped. The visual style is out of this world. The colors used in the movie are, as well, a marvel.

I can't stress it enough. It's a visual masterpiece! The sound design is, too, brilliant. There are many scenes where it's complete silence and we can only hear ambient sounds. The creaking noise of the crutches, the wind, the curtains scratching the windows, it's very immersive.

I felt tense throughout the entire movie. There were rarely any scenes where I felt the character was safe or something good was about to happen. The lengthy sequences where Lockhart goes to explore the halls of the castle and the various treatment rooms are very intriguing and I couldn't get enough of it! I'm a big fan of Point 'n Click adventure games, especially the older ones (Harvester, Sanitarium, Grim Fandango etc.

), and this movie felt like one. Lockhart going around, exploring, questioning the patients about the history of the place, learning new things about the castle and all of it leading up to a breathtaking finale which felt very satisfying was beyond fun for me.

I smiled throughout the entire movie. The characters aren't very developed, though. They're mostly black and white. Lockhart's the only character who gets a lot of development and I really enjoyed the flashback sequences regarding him.

It makes you understand the character and the actions he does. The evil doctors of the centre are just that. Evil Swiss/German doctors who are experimenting with some truly messed up things. Hannah is another character who got some development.

She's the youngest patient of the centre and everyone keeps saying how she's special so there's a great sense of mystery behind her from her very first scene. The acting is fantastic all around.

Dane DeHaan and Jason Isaacs really shine in this movie. After watching The OA it was a bit funny to see Jason Isaacs get another role of a scientist experimenting with "supernatural" stuff.

Dane DeHaan I've always liked in movies, except The Amazing Spider-Man 2. I think this is his best performance yet. The soundtrack is great. I've added all of the songs from the movie on my playlist as soon as I came home from the cinema.

The only flaw that I can think of is that the movie feels like it has more than one ending. Close to the ending of the movie, I felt as though every scene could be the last scene. There were many moments during the third act where every scene looked like the last one and I kept asking myself "Is this the end".

But, besides that, nothing else bothered me, honestly, not even the length. All in all, this is a great horror movie that I really enjoyed and most certainly will watch again as soon as it gets a digital/retail release.