Backlash007 ~Spoiler~The Attic Expeditions was a fun and very cool movie when I first viewed it in 2001. Apparently my tastes have changed. Revisiting it in 2008 I'm having difficulty reasoning why I own this film. The film follows Trevor (Andras Jones from Nightmare on Elm Street 4) as he is recovering from brain surgery in an insane asylum. Trevor's evil Dr. is running an experiment on him to find an occult book that Trevor may or may not be in possession of. There are many Lovecraft nods that horror geeks will pick up on; the book is obviously meant to be the Necronomicon. The Attic Expeditions is your typical "head screw" story where you're never sure what is reality or what is not. And that's the problem. I'm sick of these movies. I find the majority of them tedious and nigh incomprehensible. The photography is fantastic and the actors are all commendable, though Jones is a bit wooden. Jeffrey Combs is always good at the evil doctor role, Ted Raimi is a great ham, and Seth Green seems a little out of place. Alice Cooper has a small cameo. I thought director Jeremy Kasten was going to be a name to watch for. Unfortunately I was majorly disappointed with his second feature, All Soul's Day, and did not bother watching his third, The Thirst.

Scarecrow-88 Trevor Blackburn(Andras Jones)is an amnesiac told by his psychiatric doctor, brain specialist Dr. Ek(Jeffrey Combs as eccentric as ever)that he was an unhinged, hard-to-handle criminal who was behind the murder of his lover Faith(Beth Bates). Ek sends him to the House of Love, supposedly a mental recuperation center for others with insanity issues. Ek wishes for Trevor to regain his buried memories and place his confounding images into their proper context. What Trevor doesn't know is that Ek has cameras throughout the house, set up to study him. He has also planted actors in the house to pose as mental patients so to increase Trevor's mental collapse. What's sad is that Trevor is really nothing more than a lab animal for Ek's experimentation..tampering with his mind until he snaps. What Ek is really after is a book of magick for which Trevor only knows it's whereabouts. We also get a peek inside the madness within Trevor's mind where we see weird, often homicidal, images. We get visions of a reoccuring dream Travis has of an attic with a trunk. That trunk symbolically represents his mind..inside it is what has been locked away from him. The mystery of that book is really at the heart of this crazy little movie.Call it what you want. Wacky. Quirky. Colorful. Dizzying. Director Jeremy Kasten keeps the viewer on edge so we can experience the same hysteria like Trevor. The film even offers up the idea that Faith's being has came to life within Trevor's mind to get that book using someone in the House of Love as a host to kill him. Supposedly in that magick book is a key to immortality, but Trevor and Faith had to die together. But, you're never quite sure what is going on which is either part of the fun or agony depending on how much the viewer likes being pulled on the tail. Lots of B-actors here like Combs as the doctor, Ted Raimi as a writer who bares witness to Combs' madness and becomes threatened by him, Seth Green as "loony" Douglas who becomes a possible ally to Trevor.The film is really a visual marvel on such a low budget and a credit to imaginative filmmakers who really want to mind-screw you.

shawn7911 Whatever your opinion of this movie, there is one universal truth... Insanity. None of the movie is real, there is no magik, no murders, no book, no Faith. This is simply a tumultuous journey through the mind of an insane man. Stop trying to figure it out and look at it exactly as it is. The only constant is insanity obviously fabricated by the mind of a mental patient. At the very end of the movie they show two nurses in what can only be a mental hospital, No Doctor Ek. The nurses are not guessing, but sure that the patient will not wake up, not to say that he cannot wake up, but he is obviously sedated or heavily drugged, which rules out any possibility of a coma as there is no visible life support. There are no scars on his head thus no brain surgery. Think Identity only the personalities do not die when they are killed, all these people are in his head with the exception of the nurses who are indeed real(paranoid schizophrenia), one personality Doctor Eck knows it enough to diagnose it, but the personality called Dr. Ek has an ulterior motive, aka the book of magik, therefore Trevor has no reason to believe that any of the people are not real. Overall this movie was entertaining and well done if you ask me, you can certainly say it has some very good discussion about it, which I am sure was intended.

Claes_R The story, which reminds me of awakening from a bad dream, makes for an interesting movie. The main character, Trevor Blackburn (Andras Jones), convicted for the murder of his fiancée, has been left in the care of psychiatrist Dr. Ek (Jeffrey Combs). As a result of Dr. Ek's treatment Trevor suffers amnesia. Viewer and main character alike are challenged with separating dream from reality as the main character pieces together his memories. There is an occult dimension in the movie but its significance is never elaborated in the open ended script. However, the script is elegant and leaves ample room for interpretation.Rather disappointingly though, the atmosphere never builds dense enough to support the story. I blame this on the hallmarks of low budget production that shine through. Acting is wooden and the set decor and make up kitschy. There is not a single interesting camera angle throughout. However, the score is quite good, as was the opening credits.Within the group of small budget horror movies I'd give this movie an eight, however, given that this is not a cult movie and there are so many better movies out there, I've settled on a 3.