A Cure for Wellness (2017), R, ★★

Something is amidst these hallways...

I was very skeptical going into this movie because after I saw the trailer, I had two comments about it. "What the heck was going on?" and "This looks very interesting." Gore Verbinski, the director, before his Pirates fame, also made a solid scary movie called The Ring which did not insert as many horror cliches into the story but the process and originality was much scarier that I had expected and I was reward with a good movie. Verbinski is back with his roots by creating another original, inventive movie that spins you and makes you think. Unfortunately, when you think what may happen, the movie still has time to go and you just want to leave and be left with a cold revelation and an unsatisfying ending.

A rude executive named Lockhart (Dane DaHaan) heads to work via train. He is so focused that he avoids his co-workers. Lockhart with the higher-ups as they review a CEO's, Roland Pembroke's (Harry Groener) note as he has had some sort of breakdown and has not returned since his vacation at a spa for two weeks. Because he is under investigation by the SEC, Lockhart is ordered to bring back Pembroke to avoid severe penalties.

Lockhart arrives in Switzerland. He arrives at the spa as visiting hours have ended. He sees Pembroke in the bath house going for a swim. Lockhart urges Pembroke to go home with him but he refuses. Later, after being in an accident, Lockhart awakens three days later in a room at the spa. Dr. Heinreich Volmer (Jason Isaacs), the spa's director, points out that Lockhart is suffering a leg injury. After being notified by the news, Lockhart takes a drink of water and finds a parasitic creature floating in the glass.

Lockhart explores and witnesses three patients - Frank (Tomas Norstrom), Ron Nair (Ashok Mandanna), and Victoria (Celia Imrie), being medically all right. Lockhart then meets Hannah (Mia Goth), a young woman who considers herself a special case. As Lockhart undergoes treatment inside a water tank, eels fill up causing him to panic and he narrowly escapes avoiding to drown. However, as the truth unravels about the spa and about Volmer, things start to go down.

It's the eels. 

There is a solid psychological thriller in the movie somewhere. I had two big problems with this movie. The first two-thirds of the movie were 60/40. I thought most of the first two-thirds was thought-provoking and interesting surrounding the spa and its origins. However, 40% of the first two-thirds, there was some filler. I did not like the flashbacks as to why Lockhart becomes the way he is. It's too much of a throwback to Shutter Island. There's a little bit too much filler as to where the story is going. It's more exploration than advancing the plot. At times, I felt like it was interesting to witness the visuals, the intricate production design and what the spa entails but I always ask where it is going.

Dane DaHaan gives a fine performance but he is not as emotionally driven as Leonardo DiCaprio from Shutter Island or entertaining as Jack Nicholson from The Shining. He is mostly one-note in his performance. I liked Jason Isaacs as the doctor because we do not know what he is up to for most of the movie. Mia Goth also gives an interesting performance as to why she is a special case. If she were the main character, I thought the movie would be a little better.

Man, I wanted this movie to be so good because this is a fairly interesting and original psychological thriller but I was so disappointed because Verbinski stretched a very interesting premise into a bloated film full of some filler, some unnecessary structure and then it ends as an anticlimax just to entertain you but even though it was an anticlimax, it was entertaining but fairly disappointing because I was distant by its revelation. This is a rarity because usually, I like to watch director's cuts movie to see the director's passionate work. I felt like I was watching a director's cut but I wanted to see the more organized, more structured original psychological thriller than a bloated psychological thriller because there are well-crafted production designs and framing and scary elements. In the end, I was let down.

**