Villmark Asylum


Villmark Asylum is a Norwegian horror movie released in 2015. The movie was released to an American audience through Amazon Prime in 2018.

Plot

An abandoned sanatorium is decaying in a remote forest in the mountains, where an older janitor makes sure that people or animals do not enter the dangerous building. Five contract workers have taken the job of cleansing the massive building from toxins before it is to be demolished. They have to go through over 300 rooms and several kilometres of pipelines in three days. Water starts flooding out of the old pipes making their work more difficult, and an attempt to close the water leads them down to a dark basement labyrinth.

Cast

The movie is a standalone sequel to Dark Woods from 2003, with a different cast and separate story.
The film was set in the former Lyster Sanatorium or Harastølen. The director Pål Øie was inspired to create the film by reading about plans to demolish the defunct sanatorium.
A mobile game based on the film, titled Villmark Sanatoriet, was developed by TurboTape Games.

Reception

May Synnøve Rogne of Aftenposten describes the movie as an "effective nightmare", stating that while not necessarily adding to the horror genre, the movie succeeds in its most important point, to be at times "really scary". Jon Selås of Verdens Gang also gave the movie a good review, praising its actors and form of the horror genre. Aksel Kielland in Dagbladet said the film was "visually intelligent but far less smart in terms of plot and theme".