A Cure for Wellness

Interesting. But a bit predictable.

ACfW offers an odd pairing of beautiful landscape shots and cinematography with some really sceevy ****. I mean, you see a tube forced deep down a guy's throat moments before a dirty jar full of leeches(?) are poured inside him.

I mean, on one hand I'm thinking, "Wow, that's my fetish.", but on the other hand I'm thinking, "Wow, this movie looked really pretty before."

Premise is this: In the world of Matrix Vision, dude at a scummy company is pressured into retrieving an employee from a rehabilitation center out in the middle of nowhere in order to scapegoat his own failures onto him. Turns out the place is just a teeny bit too clean and a teeny bit too happy and a teeny bit too obviously a cult and- you know what? Let's just leave.

Doop-dee-doop-dee-doo-


Oh ****, now I got a broken leg and a physical representation of my inability to leave, who could have possibly forseen this? Let's heavily emphasize all the water people are drinking with lingering shots and passing comments about how we should drink more water, HOLY WOW I'm feeling sick all of a sudden, I wonder why? You know what, let's just sign ourselves into the clinic here I can't imagine that coming back to bite me in the ass later.

I was never really frustrated watching this movie, but perhaps that's because I was quelling the constant plot contrivances with a more pressing worry that the movie would go all Shutter Island on me.

And Shutter Island sucked. Just sayin'. That ending is so cliche I find it ridiculous that it got the critical appraisal it did. Must be cause it's a Leonardo DiCaprio movie.

Anyway, ACfW never goes full Shutter Island, but it repeatedly reminds us how much it would love just to take all it's clothes off and disappoint us, so the main character, after stupidly signing into the clinic in the first place, is not only persuaded that all the bull**** conspiracy stuff is a figment of his imagination ONCE, but TWICE, and seriously? Really? Ya ****in' kidding me with this?

We get this whole elongated backstory about "the Baron wanted to marry his sister who was infertile, but not, so the townsolk burned down his castle and killed her and her baby, but didn't, which was deformed, but wasn't" and really all of this elaborate MASSIVELY expensive rehab treatment facility **** was all for the sake of this Baron guy who's still alive after 200 years and wants to **** his tween(?) daughter and everyone is totally on board with that because reasons.


Okay, LOTS of questions, but HOW exactly is he even alive? They never explain this. Obviously he lived through the arson, but how did he live beyond that? We keep drawing attention to this "vitamin" stuff we eventually find is squeezed out of people filled with leeches or whatever, but what does that do? Did EVER establish what that stuff even is or what purpose it serves? I think it's only ever used by Main Guy, Big Bad, Incest Daughter, and the staff, so what does it do? Does it extend their lives? Does it prevent them from becoming de-hydrated and losing their teeth because drinking the water with leech stuff in it somehow drains them? Was THAT ever established?

Are they even leeches in the first place? They look like eels! Eels are not leeches! What is even the life-cycle of these Eelches, you drink them when they're microscopic in your water, pee them out still microscopic offscreen, and so they grow in your toilet, except they don't cause that's just a recurring hallucination AND WHY WOULDN'T YOU LIFT THE TANK UP AND LOOK INSIDE THE FIRST TIME YOU SEE THE TOILET HANDLE JIGGLING!?!?

I dunno somehow, "Surprise, I'm a 200-year-old blood puritan who's been experimenting on hundreds of people under the facade of a professional medical facility just so I can have bondage incest sex with my 200-year-old underage daughter next to the eel bath" is a bit of an anti-climax.

Was gonna call this "Meh...", but no way does this movie hold up in retrospect.