A Cure For Wellness

Director Gore Verbinski feels like a fella that's been pigeon-holed by success. Despite a knack for offbeat drama, dark comedy, and horror, Verbinski was quickly swallowed up by the success of Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl and the Johnny Depp train that lead to the first two Pirates sequels and the much maligned Lone Ranger movie. Which is why seeing Verbinski helm A Cure for Wellness, a gothic horror film, is both a pleasant and unexpected surprise. But does the movie have the creepy goods?

Dane DeHaan stars as Lockhart, an up and coming Wall-Street executive whose firm is under SEC investigation. Hoping to through someone under the bus, Lockhart's higher ups send him to retrieve Pembroke, a board member who recently had a psychotic break and is staying at a medical facility in the German mountains. But once he arrives, Lockhart quickly realizes that the staff's stonewalling may be hiding more sinister intentions.

*Slight spoilers ahead*

Like many movies of its ilk, A Cure For Wellness has the familiar skeleton of other horror movies. As such anyone familiar with the genre or genre homages like Crimson Peak will put together the major plot points quite quickly. The hospital isn't on the up and up. They're doing something creepy and our hero will be put through some semblance of psychological and physical trauma to get to the bottom of it.

Thus, a movie like this is judged by different standards. Let's break them down.

The Production Values: Excellent

If nothing else, this movie looks fantastic. The locations are appropriately big ancient and creepy, the tech used at the facility invokes turn of the century machinery, and the color palette is limited to muted colors at best (minus blood and some blues). There's also a lot of effective and unsettling imagery, especially during hallucinatory visions that works like gangbusters.

It also helps that Gore Verbinski is an excellent visual storyteller and does an excellent job at selecting shots that are both excellent eye candy, and catch the right thing at the right time. You can track the protagonists emotional journey by the shot selection which is a rarity in this genre.

The Acting: Mixed Bag

Like most horror movies, the supporting players and the villainous types in A Cure are all phenomenal. Jason Isaacs continues his win streak as a high grade baddie, and Mia Goth maintains the child-like innocence you need from her character. Round out the group with some perfect bit players ranging from cold orderlies to rambling patients and you've got great stuff. 

Our lead, Dane Dehaan, is another story. I should be clear that I like Dehaan as an actor, and I'm fairly certain that the script didn't give him much to work with, but his performance isn't quite what the movie needs. The movie really needs a lead who's been through trauma, might be susceptible to suggestion, is morally grey, but is ultimately a good person. Unfortunately Dehaan's facial expressions and general demeanor are always a bit bully-like and the audience never gets a chance to empathize or like his character, and since he's our hero and one of the few people we're supposed to care about, that's a problem.

The Scares: *Shrug*

I'm all for emphasizing atmosphere over jump scares, but there's very little in Wellness that's actually frightening to me. Sure the facility is up to some shady stuff and they take things pretty far, but in over two hours of what is being sold as a horror movie, I found myself very at ease. There are plenty of disturbing ideas presented but with all of the build up you'd think there would be more stomach-churning grossness or balls to wall insanity to deal with.

Verdict: Well-Crafted but Fundamentally Flawed

A Cure For Wellness was never going to reinvented its genre, but it doesn't have enough working parts to truly recommend. I'm sure some horror fans will dig it, but the film's languid pace and other flaws kept me at arm's length. You can skip this one.