[Review]: Infirmary

Having had its world premiere at Dances With Films NY back in January, the Nicholas Pineda directed chiller Infirmary is a low-fi chiller that utilises the found footage medium in order to document the first and last night on the job for fresh-faced security guard Edward.

Portrayed through personal body cams and security cameras, former marine Edward (played by Paul Syre) is a newly employed security guard on the night shift at an abandoned asylum, Wilshire Infirmary. Paired up with the cynically grumpy Lester (played by Mark Anthony Williams), who insists on playing cruel tricks on the new guy, Edward’s shift becomes plagued by inexplicable occurrences. Once Lester disappears into the dark bowels of the building, Edward must face the dark past of the asylum and attempt to discover the terrible secrets it houses within its walls, before he becomes twisted into the very foundations of evil itself.  

With a market already oversaturated by found footage films set against the backdrop of a creepy abandoned asylum, it can be difficult to see an offering within this genre as anything other than a formulaic carbon-copy of films that have come before, and whilst Infirmary offers little to no deviation from the regular plot line of such movies, what it does provide is game-play-esque POV visuals and cinematography. As the main character traverses through the liminal space of the old hospital, the audience is almost at one with Edward, seeing what he sees (or doesn’t see) and experiencing a sort of tension that can only end in a nightmarish release. Paul Syre gives a commendable performance as the tortured Edward, haunted by his time in the marines, with hints that all is not well with his home life since returning. With horrific practices having previously taken place in the long deserted hospital, the abandoned building can be seen to mirror the horrors a former serving marine may have witnessed, and the abandonment that occurs to many veterans who return from war, suffering from the terrors they too have experienced. 

Infirmary manages to pay homage to found footage favourites such as Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (2018) and Grave Encounters (2011) whilst still carving out a place for itself in the found footage genre sphere as an effectively unnerving journey through the abandonment of both a physical place of horror, and the horrors within the human mind. 

3.5 Screams out of 5