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Jack (Ross Destiche) is a guy who hasn't got many friends by nature, and the fact that he's of late deeply depressed because of the death of his sister hasn't made life for him any easier, especially at his new college, where he has problems connecting to others - and suddenly he finds himself locked in a seemingly abandoned asylum with his pushover roommate Corey (Shane Philip) and Corey's childhood friends, Mr know-it-all Grant (Justen Jones), Grant's bitchy and egocentric on-and-off girlfriend Vanessa (Jenna Enemy), and somewhat ditzy "spiritual" Jaime (Kodi Saint Angelo). Now this throws Jack off already, especially since none of them really know how they got there and all start seeing things - which might mean one of two things, either the place is haunted or they were drugged and abducted. Trying to find their way out, our heroes can't fail to notice the place's riddled with death traps and a group of hooded villains wearing crow-like plague doctor masks ... and soon, Grant dies, too, but later returns from the dead. But a young girl, Anne (Emily Soto) appears to Jack, and she might have an idea what's going on - but at the same time might be a ghost or a figment of Jack's imagination.

So what's really going on is this: Jack and company are experiment subjects of a shady gouvernment organisation led by Dr. Broward (Brad Dourif) testing a new drug - but the experiment gets out of hand because everybody in Broward's team seems to have their own agendas, and nobody seems to even grasp the full meaning of what's going on once the experiment does go out of control when Grant comes back to life, and suddenly it's one party versus the other, but nobody knows who's on whose side, but what's for sure is everything has to do with a machine that opens a door to the beyond - and that's definitely not a good idea ...

Now I have to admit, the plot of The Control Group is a tad on the confusing side to say the least, and for the most part, the audience is left in the blue regarding the on-screen goings-on as the cast of characters - but somehow that doesn't matter all that much, because this is a really tense film that is good at keeping the audience guessing and at the edge of their seats at the same time and that features many well-placed and fittingly grotesque shocks while being strong on atmosphere - and the location helps loads here. And of course, a strong cast doesn't hurt one bit either to make this very cool genre entertainment!

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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