The Horror Show
A Cure For Wellness
by Gore Verbinski
If you’re a fan of HMS and The Horror Show and you’ve been reading my reviews from the start, then there’s probably one thing you know about me: I have a bad habit of letting movie trailers hype up my expectations. Most of the time this leaves me with a deep feeling of disappointment and once again, I fell into the trap, allowing myself to get pulled in by the glory that was the beautifully edited trailer for A Cure For Wellness.
Watching the film, I did get that same feeling I got while watching the trailer a few times. The score was absolutely on point, the acting was great, and the cinematography made for a beautiful and chilling atmosphere. Those things aside, I can’t say that I enjoyed anything else about this movie.
The plot is, at first, delivered simply enough: an ambitious salesman named Lockhart (Dane DeHaan) is sent off on a wild goose chase to find one of the big dogs in his firm to take the fall as the FCC investigates a merger. If Lockhart fails to bring back the CEO from the mysterious spa in Switzerland, his own ass gets thrown onto the chopping block. Seems pretty cut and dry, right? Well, of course that’s not the case. We’re then taken on a journey that gives you a false sense of something spectacular and ultimately fails to pack a punch. I was okay with this film for the first hour or so, but it moves along at a snail’s pace and this “horror” film is almost three hours long, so the writers really needed to make some moves. Unfortunately, these moves were made too little too late.
I saw the big twist coming from a mile away, and if that wasn’t bad enough, we’re treated to a gratuitous rape scene between a father and his daughter that actually had people around me in the theater asking out loud “how long is this going to go on?” How delightful.
Amidst the groans and grumbles of my fellow theater-goers, I still desperately searched for reasons to like this film. I sat with my friend for over an hour after the movie had finished, discussing different details and mysteries that were never explained and then perused discussion after discussion on Reddit, hopeful that something had just been lost on me or that perhaps I was too dull to catch on to the bigger picture. But alas, there really was no bigger picture, and after asking another friend to discuss the film with me, I realized there isn’t anything to discuss. It’s that simple of a film with too many unnecessary bits left in after editing and more mystery than it could handle.
A Cure For Wellness begs to be loved with its eye-catching symmetry, haunting visuals, and ominous score, but in the end, it’s best compared to the self-proclaimed goth in a group of friends who reads only Lovecraft, thinks they’re hyper-intellectual, and constantly wonders why nobody likes them.
Stevie Kopas, HMS
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