It’s been called “imaginative and audacious” (Los Angeles Times), “fantastic and surreal” (Classic Horror) and “an ideal film that verges towards masterpiece” (Weird Wild Realm). Now experience the Blu-ray premiere of the hallucinatory debut by director Jeremy Kasten (THE DEAD ONES, THE THEATRE BIZARRE, THE WIZARD OF GORE remake) about a young man committed to an asylum where madness, mayhem and murder may rip apart his mind forever. Seth Green (ROBOT CHICKEN), Jeffrey Combs (RE-ANIMATOR), Andras Jones (A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4), Ted Raimi (SKINNER), Wendy Robie (TWIN PEAKS) and Alice Cooper star in the 2001 shocker Fangoria hailed as “an ambitious first feature laced with a wonderful cast, quirky charms and cool twists”, scanned in 2k from the original negative with all-new Special Features.

Tyler’s Take (4 / 5)

If you’re looking for a real mindfuck, The Attic Expeditions might be the movie for you. I’m not even sure how to give a brief synopsis, because I’m not sure what this move was actually about.

The main protagonist is an acute schizophrenic who also moonlights as a witch of some sort, named Trevor (Andras Jones). He apparently murdered his fiancé, Faith, in some magic ritual gone wrong and was placed in a sanitarium. There are several antagonists, who could be either Dr. Ek (who runs the sanitarium) or Faith herself, who ends up possessing one of the characters later in order to murder Trevor. Yea, it’s already confusing trying to explain it, I can’t imagine how the readers are piecing this together but here goes…

The first thing I noticed was the ridiculous amount of star power the director and producers were able to convince to do an independent movie on a shoestring budget. Every scene had me wondering who else would show up that I recognized from something else. Jeffrey Combs from The Frighteners, Re-Animator and Bride of Re-Animator; Alice Cooper—rock god; Ted Raimi from Skinner, Evil Dead II, Candyman among others; Seth Green from Schitt’s Creek, Austin Powers, and basically everything.

Once you get past being starstruck, the film itself is surprisingly well-shot, technically speaking. It was another one of those independent movies written by a bunch of kids with almost no budget, but somehow it looks like it could have been a made-for-HBO type of movie in a lot of ways. The special effects and makeup are sparse for a horror movie, but effective. There are several pretty cool deaths, and the ending sequence is exceptional. The atmospheric music combined with Hitchcock-esque camera shots enhance the creep factor and are a throwback to the early horror movies of the 1940s and 50s. There’s also an original song by Alice Cooper, who makes a cameo in the movie under the name of Samuel Leventhal, who we find out in the 20th Reunion bonus was the name of the first movie the producers every wrote.

And then there’s the plot. At moments brilliant, and at moments overcomplicated. It’s appropriate that the main theme is schizophrenia, as the script reflects that mental illness almost perfectly. This is one of those movies that has the audience questioning what’s real and what’s a setup the entire time. It mostly is set in a place called the House of Love, where Trevor is sent to rehabilitate his mind after waking up from a four-year coma following some sort of brain surgery to correct his schizophrenia. What he doesn’t know is that all the inhabitants in the house are actors, hired to conduct an elaborate therapy session for Trevor. At least that’s what the experiment’s leader—Dr. Ek—claims. As you can imagine, shenanigans ensue where Trevor starts piecing together that this is a setup, while also getting flashbacks of his life before the surgery.

The performances of the “actors” playing insane individuals in the house are very good, with Seth Green stealing all scenes. They all play “stereotypical” asylum residents: the guy who uses a hand puppet and thinks it’s real; the guy who is too smart to be here and is paranoid about everything; the girls who can’t stop typing because she thinks she is writing actual existence. And then Trevor, who may be hallucinating the whole time. And then finally, the Nurse Rachet character who runs the house. You can definitely see a lot of One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest influence in this film.

The plot is a little convoluted towards the end, as the film tries to “Tarantino” some of the scenes to present big reveals, but that only serves to confuse the audience a bit too much. I think it tried to be too clever than it needed. But as Alice Cooper says in one of the bonus features, he was drawn to the film because he kept asking, “where is this going?” And that’s really the appeal of this type of movie.

Speaking of extras, there aren’t many, but they are all very highly recommended. There’s the aforementioned 20th anniversary reunion of the cast, an interview between Alice Cooper and Jeffrey Combs, and a conversation with horror expert Adam Shockoff contextualizing the movie in the genre. There are some cool home movies straight out of the 90s, and some clips of the first self-shot movies of the producers.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie, but could have done with a little less mind-bending towards the end. I also wish they would have leaned a bit more into the horror aspect; this is definitely more a psychological thriller than anything else. But there were opportunities to really explore some of the gore associated with witchcraft that I thought was a missed opportunity. There are also some threads left hanging, especially what happens to Doctor Ek, and his search for this magic book that he never finds. But it does leave the audience wondering if this whole movie was in Trevor’s mind, and maybe that’s why it’s as disjointed and incomplete as it is at the end. And I can live with that.

If you’re comfortable with a lack of closure and enjoy seeing some of your horror movie heroes navigate a trippy script, then The Attic Expeditions might be the movie for you. Plus, there’s Alice fucking Cooper.

Hidden Treasure/Dumpster Fire?

Tyler says: Hidden Treasure!

Tyler's Take:	(4.0 / 5)
Blu-Ray Extras:	(5.0 / 5)
Average:	(4.5 / 5)

• Cast & Crew 20 Year Pandemic Reunion & Story of Making THE ATTIC EXPEDITIONS, featuring Jeremy Kasten, Seth Green, Jeffrey Combs, Tim Heidecker and many more
• Alice Cooper & Jeffrey Combs Internet Reunion
• Horror Scholar Adam Rockoff Contextualizes THE ATTIC EXPEDITIONS