Now available on Netflix is the new Netflix original horror
film titled Clinical, about a psychiatrist who takes on a disfigured patient
while dealing with her own past traumatic event. This psychological thriller that
sometimes pretends it’s a ghost story boasts strong performances from the two lead
actors and throws heaps of blood at the viewers, but suffers from being far too
predictable and containing many unrealistic scenarios. Netflix attempt at
bringing in more original content unfortunately falls in between being average
and tedious.
The story focuses on themes of psychiatric treatment and dealing
with post traumatic stress, while also questioning the effectiveness of the
clinical system and the use of medicine for treatment. It is essentially a
psychological thriller that throws various other subgenres at you as red
herrings in an attempt to throw you off the scent of what the final twist will
be. The problem is that it doesn’t work and for most viewers, you should be
able to figure out what’s going on fairly quick. All of the characters except
for the psychiatrist Dr. Jane Mathis (Vinessa Shaw) and her new patient Alex
(Kevin Rahm) are purely one dimensional, serving as pawns in the story and a
bridge between the relationship between Mathis and Alex. The predictably is
nowhere near as bad as the series of unrealistic situations that occur
throughout the movie. They are head scratchers that have you talking to the
television screen, saying no one in their right mind would do that.
The acting is excellent from Shaw and Rahm, both providing
inspiring performances. Shaw does a superb job going through the process of an
increasing decline into a trouble psychosis, dealing with a past trauma that
continues to haunt her. Rahm is completely transformed and unrecognizable as
the disfigured patient, giving us a character that is both troubled and dark.
Their character relationship and onscreen performances together are the
strength of this production. The rest of the cast is good in their minimal
roles.
The directing from Alistair Legrand is decent. The indoor
scenes are mostly darkened and lowly lit, focusing on a grayish color palette to
make things mysterious and potentially scary. There are a lot of unusual camera
angles and tricks employed in order to create that sense of psychosis occurring.
The score is pretty much the typical horror score using strings and other
instruments in an attempt to frighten the audience.
For fans of horror looking for some blood, they do manage to
deliver on that end. Despite only being in a few scenes, when it’s present they
really let it fly. The special effects and make up all terrific and moments of
gore look very realistic.
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| Original Netflix programming, hooray! |
Bottom line, Netflix has a mix of good and bad original
programming and this one falls somewhere in the middle of the pack.
