A Cure for Wellness (2017)

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nA Cure for Wellness (2017)

nDirector: Gore Verbinski

nCast: Dane DeHaan, Jason Isaacs, Mia Goth

nA good place to start this review would be by mentioningnthat director Gore Verbinski was at one point attached to direct a film based onnan extremely popular and successful video game called Bioshock. Strangely enough I finished playing all threenBioschock games last week! I was so hooked, I had no social life for a while. Inplayed all three games back to back! Upon finishing the Bioshock trilogy I wasnleft with the notion that these games would in fact make fantastic movies andnthat if Gore Verbinski, a director I’ve come to admire, was going to be the onenhelming the film adaptation, I could rest assured It would be good adaptation.nSadly, just eight weeks before the film was to begin shooting, and after muchnpre-production, Universal got cold feet because Verbinski wanted the film to bena hard ‘R’ rated violent film and the studio didn’t want to risk 200 million onna big budget horror film. So Universal Studios pulled the plug on the project. ApparentlynVerbinski really had an itching to make that film because here comes a notnsurprisingly similar idea in the form of A Cure for Wellness (2017). So are thenrumors true? Is this film heavily influenced by the game? And video gamenconnections aside, was the film any good?
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nA Cure for Wellness tells the story of a young businessmannnamed Lockhart, who is sent by his superiors to bring back his company’s CEO.nYou see, the rich old man went on a trip to the Swiss Alps to visit a ‘WellnessnSpa’ and ended up never coming back. Lockhart’s mission is to bring him back atnany cost because the future of the company is hanging on the balance of thisnone mission. The mysterious “spa” is rumored to have these curative waters,nwhich can heal people, and quite possibly, give them immortality! Is it all on people’snminds? Or is there something else at work here? Will Lockhart ever return fromnthe Spa that no one returns from?
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nSo yes, the film does in fact have many, many things inncommon with Bioschock. It has leeches, it has lighthouses, it has crazy oldnpeople hell bent on “perfection” and beauty. It involves the idea of suckingnthe life out of people, so yeah, fans of Bioshock will find a special delightnin seeing this film because it is in fact sort of like a Bioschock film,nwithout the more expensive elements of the game, like having an entire citynunderwater. But even though it does have similarities to these games, it’s alsonvery much its own thing. Video games similarities aside, the good news is thatnI truly enjoyed this creepy as hell movie. It’s the kind of old school horrornfilm that does not in any way rely on jump scares, or cheap loud noises toncreep you out. Nope, these scares arenwell orchestrated my friends! The last time that Gore Verbinski took a stab atnhorror was with The Ring (2002) and I remember being blown away by that one thenfirst time I saw it in theaters. It was a PG-13 horror film that showed me thatnwhen a filmmaker truly tries, the PG-13 rating doesn’t even matter! Of course,nwhen a film is R rated you can go further and Verbinski really milks his ‘R’nrating in A Cure for Wellness. There are some truly gruesome bits here, butnthere’s also the intensity of the very adult thematic elements.

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nVerbinski gives the whole film this classy vibe, this feltnlike an old school horror film. How refreshing is it to see a horror film notnaimed at teenagers? Where there isn’t a comic relief character saying stupidnjokes after something frightening happens? I thank the horror gods that finally,nhere’s a horror movie through and through, trying its hardest to creep you outnby slowly building on the terror and the paranoia, instead of treating us likenidiots. So my hats down to Verbinski, this felt like a true horror film. Itnsinks you into the horror and then goes further, darker. The atmospheric elements on this film were handlednsplendidly. I notice how hard Verbinski was attempting to hold onto thatndreadful atmosphere all the time. He made sure there were gloomy clouds, lonelynhallways, creepy looking characters, a dreadful color palette. To me the bestnhorror films are those that don’t let go of the atmosphere, as an audience, wenlike to stay in that spooky world and we want that spooky vibe all the time,nand on this film we get it. From the spooky castle at the top of the hill, tonthe gloomy weather and the spooky ghost like young girl that looms around thenspa, Gorvinski was trying to evoke doom, dread and isolation. He achieved it innmy book. From a visual standpoint the film is fantastic. Verbinski succeeded inncreating amazing visuals with this one. Like Kubrick, you could pause manynmoments on this film and they’d feel like a painting. There’s a lot of playnwith colors on this film, but not the kind that pop out, instead this filmnshows us muted colors that send the image of death and decay to ournbrains. And if its not grimmy dirty, its neat and almost too perfect. A clinical sort of perfection, which augments how some of the characters search for it.

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nAnd speaking about the films influences, well, they were allnover the place. Starting with the most obvious one: Robin Hardy’s The WickernMan (1973). A Cure for Wellness definitely follows that formula in which the main character is falling intonthe spider’s web, little by little. He doesn’t realize what he is gettingnhimself into until it is too late. It brought to mind other films likenKubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Martin Scorcese’s Shutter Island (2010) andneven Roman Polansky’s Rosermary’s Baby (1968), the latter when it comes to thenmusic on this film, which is perfect on certain scenes. So yeah, I loved it tondeath. It’s a film that explores the very nature of religion and why it exists.nWhy are people afraid to leave a cult? Why do we end up feeling like religionnwill save us? Why do we search for it? Do we need it? So here we have a filmnthat plays with important themes, it’s not just another empty horror film. Onnthe downside, the film does run for two hours and a half, I personally didn’tnmind them because I find this theme fascinating, but I’m sure some audiencesnwill grow impatient. My best advice would be to go into it expecting a slownburner that at the end will be worth the trip. At times I felt it was going toonslow for its own good, but then bang, it reeled me in again. I saw it lastnnight and ended up dreaming I was in that damned spa! Also, I feel like ansecond viewing is needed to truly absorb this one, it has a lot of story to it.nBasically, I was a satisfied costumer with this movie.