The Lost Episode, 2012.
Directed by Michael Rooker.
Starring Haylie Duff, Beverley Mitchell, Amanda Dunn, J. LaRose, Jimmy Palumbo, Robb Pruitt, Michael McKiddy and Michael Rooker.
SYNOPSIS:
Years after its closure, a local TV crew return to Pennhurst Asylum, hoping to capture evidence of paranormal activity. Instead, they discover something completely unexpected and find themselves fighting for their lives as a maniacal surgeon picks them off one at a time.
Since his harrowing debut in 1986’s Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Michael Rooker has went on to firmly established himself as one of Hollywood’s best character actors, delivering memorable turns in the likes of Eight Men Out, Mississippi Burning, Mallrats, Slither and The Walking Dead. Now, with the ‘haunted lunatic asylum’ offering The Lost Episode, Rooker steps behind the camera for his directorial debut, and in doing so, he’s delivered yet another memorable effort – albeit one that’s memorable for entirely all the wrong reasons.
The Lost Episode opens with a mother arriving outside Pennhurst State School and Hospital (an actual abandoned asylum that’s featured on several of those ghost-hunting reality shows) in search of her son, who promptly dispatches a security guard and is never seen or heard from again. From here, we’re introduced to a group of teens who arrive at Pennhurst for no apparent reason other than to act as a framing device for the main story, which centres on a local TV crew who paid a visit to the asylum a year or so earlier, hoping to capture evidence of paranormal activity. Within minutes, they managed to achieve just that (thanks to a nifty iPad app that sees dead people), but the spirits inhabiting the asylum are the least of their worries, and after inexplicably splitting up, the crew then find themselves falling prey to the mysterious Doctor Death (Rooker), who employs a variety of surgically-themed methods to bring about their demise. Now I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure castration doesn’t lead to instant death… no matter how hard the victim wishes it would.
Overlooking the tired, generic and desperately predictable narrative, The Lost Episode suffers from some of the worst cinematography I’ve ever had the misfortune to see. A typical scene from The Lost Episode begins with a brightly lit (but occasionally out of focus and / or poorly framed) master shot, before cutting to a near-pitch black close-up on one of the characters, followed by an overexposed shot of another, and so on and so on… it’s so appallingly bad that within minutes you really start to wonder whether director of photography Richard Welnowski had even seen a camera and set of lights prior to landing this gig. As it happens, he obviously had – the guy has an Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Special Visual Effects, and he really ought to stick to VFX work, because as a cinematographer he completely kills this movie and I’m surprised that Rooker didn’t tie him to a table and castrate him the moment the first dailies came in.
At the end of the day, the atrocious cinematography matters very little; had Rooker managed to secure the services of a Janusz Kaminski or Wally Pfister to shoot this film, it still wouldn’t have prevented The Lost Episode from being a total stinker. The acting is mediocre at best, there’s barely a scare to be had, and despite clocking in at just over 70 minutes, it’s pretty much already run out of steam by the time the third set of characters are introduced. It’s unfortunate, as I am a fan of Rooker, but even his on screen appearance as Doctor Death isn’t anywhere near enough to save this from being the worst film I’ve sat through in a long, long while. If you’re after a decent ‘TV crew visits a haunted lunatic asylum’ film, forget about The Lost Episode and hunt down Grave Encounters instead. And if you’ve already seen Grave Encounters, just watch it again. Or go without. You’ll thank me for it.
Flickering Myth Rating: Film ★ / Movie ★
Gary Collinson is a writer and lecturer from the North East of England. He is the editor-in-chief of FlickeringMyth.com and the author of Holy Franchise, Batman! Bringing the Caped Crusader to the Screen.
Originally published October 8, 2012. Updated April 12, 2018.
