Pennhurst was once a hospital where "feeble" minded people were parked away from polite society. Anyone with any disability was shipped off to the hospital. It gained a reputation for being horror show place where the patients were abused and neglected. It was eeventually shut down. Now, many years later the place is being being used as the location of a haunted house put on by many of the people who decades earlier would have been the inmates.
This was one of my my see films of the festival. Growing up doing hauunted houses in my basement and being a monster kid all my life this seemed like it was going to be up my alley. I was un happy because in the weeks before Tribeca it looked like I would not be able to see the film, but fate stepped in and I was able to view it.
To be honest THE HAUNTING OF PENNHURST disappointed me. It's not that what here is bad, so much as the film is trying to do too much in too little time. In its way its three different films and juggling the three threads makes it so none of them feel fully formed.
The first film would be the history of Penhurst itself. The film gives us a cooks tour of the hospital and its history. We get a brief over view of the hospital and its horrors, but there is a sense that we could have known a bit more.
The second film is the story of the haunted house. We watch as the the crew puts the monsteer show together and trains. This is good but by the numbers. It reminded me of a number of other haunted attraction films but slightly shorter (there are other things going on). It does show us about how the event comes together (and also the ghost hunting tours) but at the same time there is a distance between the filmakers and what we are seeing.
Lastly there is the story of the cast and crew. The film follows the crew as they are trained for the event and put things together. We do get a sense of who some of them are, but at the same time the filmmakers keep us kind of tied to their being at Pennhurst so we don't really see them in connection to life outside. I wanted to see more. I think I wanted to see more because the filmmakers never seemed to get people when they weren't on. Everyuone is aware of the cameras and they play to them.
While none of the sections are bad, I still wanted more from all of them. I wanted to know more about everything in a larger context and not just see the it in the context of Pennhurst. And thats the problem, we are largely just at the old hospital and there is no outside world.
I don't dislike the film, I do like what it's trying to do, but I wanted more from all the bits and more in the way of context.
(And I'm not sure why this is in the Escape From Tribeca section since it's not really a fringe subject)
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