Inventive, hysterical, and strangely beautiful, Rene Daalder's intelligent, never less than compelling psychodrama vividly brings a disturbing verisimilitude to the age-old adage of 'The lunatics are running the asylum!' Daalder creates a stylish, ballsy, and fiendishly clever descent into a tightly choreographed maelstrom of deliciously distracting dementia! This artfully staged British-Canadian Co-production has a rousingly wonderful score, a sardonic, thought-provoking text, and the uniformly fabulous cast deliver visceral performances as the increasingly outlandish patients who eerily share one squalling group consciousness, with their impish, gimlet-eyed ringmaster, Patrick MacGoohan, being on magisterially mental form, charismatically portraying the illuminated lunatic Dr. Harvey Langston with a barely controllable glee! And the sultry, raven haired, distractingly limber beauty, Emmanuelle Vaugier is positively magnetic as the volatile, darkly fascinating, but dangerously psychotic, Veronica Bloom! This jittery,frequently erotic, excitingly off-kilter Sci-horror gem proves itself to be an eccentric, enticingly Cronenbergian 'Shock Corridor' that is manifestly worth the visit!
Review of Hysteria
Hysteria
(1997)
'Hysteria' flies waaaaaay over the cuckoo's nest and deep into the Event Horizon!!!!!
3 February 2023