In our “The Good, the Bad, and the Verdict” film reviews, Joseph and Mike give their thoughts on a slice of cinema. For this installment, it’s Night Explorers: The Asylum from John K. Webster and Level 33 Entertainment.
Synopsis
A group of friends run a popular YouTube channel exploring abandoned and haunted properties. Often encountering scary activities and ghostly apparitions or so it would seem. They get an opportunity to explore a large, disused mental hospital trying to discover evidence of the afterlife. When they arrive, things start off normal, but they soon discover something evil that won't let them leave.
The Good
Joseph: No animals were harmed in the making of this motion picture.
Mike: As Night Explorers: The Asylum hits its second act things take a wild 180° turn from where it seemed as the film was heading and starts to become much more interesting than when it started. The remainder of the film features some truly gnarly blood and guts which is all pretty well done, and there is also a cute little dog who makes an appearance.
The Bad
Joseph: There’s meta, and then there’s a character commenting on how he feels as though he and his partners are stuck in a [expletive about fecal matter deleted] horror movie — and he isn’t far off base. There’s homage, and then there is basically ripping off a famous scene from a famous Tales from the Crypt story (it involves razor blades — seasoned fear-fare viewers will know it when they see it). Night Explorers: The Asylum doesn’t offer anything in the originality department, from its streaming channel talent arguing about whether or not they should fake events to grow their audience to the gory Saw-like elements.
Mike: Stop me if you’ve heard this one before; a group of social media “paranormal urban explorers” get an opportunity to film one of their shows from inside a former mental hospital (it’s ALWAYS a former mental hospital), which is supposedly “the most haunted place on earth”. Okay, got that? Right. So the premise of this is not unique and there are enough bits “borrowed” from other films along the way that you could probably create a drinking game to go along with this.
In lieu of providing any real characterization we meet the group at a party that does very little beyond providing us with names and faces and in fact does more towards simply padding the runtime to make up for the lack of anything else.
Most importantly - what is with the title? It makes it sound like this is part of a series, like there should be a “Night Explorers: The Mausoleum”, or “Night Explorers: The Ghost Ship”, or something.
The Verdict
Joseph: To be fair to the filmmakers, cast, and crew behind Night Explorers: The Asylum, I’m not in the least a fan of torture horror, and this film definitely goes there, so it lost me at that point. Fans of that type of fright fare will probably find this feature worth a watch, and I mean that sincerely. Viewers who favor story originality over gore and shock sequences will want to give this one a pass, though.
Mike: Night Explorers: The Asylum treats viewers with a serious case of whiplash after spending a first act establishing one type of movie and then pivoting into totally different waters - a move some may appreciate for the shock and misdirection while others may be totally turned off by not getting what they expected, and the lack of originality and paper-thin characters may turn both groups off.
Technically the film is sound enough and there is some clever cinematography within, but ultimately there’s just not enough here to make this worth a recommendation.
Night Explorers: The Asylum, from Level 33 Entertainment, is available via VOD as of July 25, 2023
Directed By: John K. Webster
Written By: John K. Webster
Starring: Hannah Al Rashid, Craig Edwards, Charlie Rich
Run Time: 1h 37m
Rating: NR
Release Date: July 25, 2023