Haunted Hospital: Heilstätten is a German horror movie that takes place in an abandoned sanitorium. The middle part of this movie is pretty weak, but it begins and ends well. There’s definitely an audience for this kind of horror!
Haunted Hospital: Heilstätten is a German horror movie but please don’t let that stop you from watching it. Especially if you watched Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum from South Korea. And liked it, of course.
The premise of both Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum and Haunted Hospital: Heilstätten is pretty much the same. A group of young people goes to an abandoned hospital of a sort as a dare. Also, in both cases, they do it for online followers.
Recommended reading: Check out our review of South Korean horror movie Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum right here >
In the case of this German horror movie, we get introduced to three different YouTube channels from the get-go. This is a smart way to introduce the characters. And especially to introduce the kind of audience they each work with and talk to.
The director’s previous movie was #1 on IMDb’s Worst Movies list!
While Haunted Hospital: Heilstätten isn’t the best horror movie out there, I was very surprised to learn more about the director’s previous movie. It was a horror comedy called Potato Salad with a story about a zombie virus infecting a school in Germany.
To me, this sounds like a pretty cool movie along the lines of Shaun of the Dead or Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse. However, Potato Salad has a rating of 1,3 on IMDb and held the #1 spot of IMDb’s Worst Movies in September 2015.
That’s something! Not something good, but certainly it does require quite a lot of very bad user ratings.
In any case, I haven’t seen Potato Salad and I’m honestly curious about it. So it’s not all bad, I guess.
Also, Haunted Hospital: Heilstätten certainly isn’t a movie that should ever come even close to the same level of very bad user ratings.
Haunted Hospital: Heilstätten is simply too long
The only major problem with Haunted Hospital: Heilstätten is the runtime. To me, it opens pretty well and the ending is strong as well. It’s not super innovative or anything, but it does work within the frames of the story.
It’s the middle part that lets down this movie. Especially since this is when many of the characters tend to wander off on their own. This is supposed to be a collaboration dare event between two battling YouTube channels with very diverse audience profiles.
One is all about pranks and dares while the other is a beauty vlogger. The third and final blogger isn’t supposed to be part of this event but ends up there anyway. And with her relatively few subscribers, it’s pretty strange that these rather big YouTube stars seem to go along with it.
And yes, then there’s the part about them wandering around on their own time and time again. They never tell anyone and they’re not doing anything live, so I really don’t know what that’s all about. Or rather, I do. It’s all about creating horror and jump scares.
Unfortunately, this rarely works as intended. Especially since the viewer is annoyed that the characters are doing everything Scream called out horror movies for always doing!
The one redeeming thing is the fact that the characters often comment on this. But since they also continue to act in silly ways it feels like just another ploy.
A solid cast saves the day
To me, Haunted Hospital: Heilstätten gets away with a lot because the cast works well. They do act like typical YouTubers in the same manner that news reporters put on their “reporter”-voice and it created a very believable premise.
I especially like the two prankster YouTubers, Charly and Finn. They were played by Emilio Sakraya (Charly) and Timmi Trinks (Finn), who I would love to see in another horror comedy.
Director and co-writer, Michael David Pate, should have redeemed himself quite a bit with Haunted Hospital: Heilstätten. And personally, I’m pretty interested in watching Potato Salad since people hate it so much.
If you like this kind of story (people staying overnight in supposedly haunted places), then do check out Haunted Hospital: Heilstätten. It’s not exactly good, but it has its moments so it’s not bad either.
Haunted Hospital: Heilstätten is available on DVD, Blu-ray Combo, Digital and On Demand from February 12, 2019.
Details
Director: Michael David Pate
Writers: Michael David Pate, Ecki Ziedrich
Stars: Nilam Farooq, Farina Flebbe, Sonja Gerhardt, Emilio Sakraya, Tim Oliver Schultz
Plot
A group of vloggers illegally access a condemned asylum for a “Will you Survive the Night” viral social media challenge. Equipped with night vision and thermal cameras, the adolescent adrenaline junkies chase the rumors of paranormal activity, not only learning they are not alone…they are not welcome.
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