The Dead Center (2018)

Mental illness, besides being a trendy topic, is also a pretty touchy one. So using an emergency psychological facility as the setting for a supernatural thriller could very well have gone horribly wrong. But writer / director Billy Senese's The Dead Center treats it characters, both patients and staff, with a surprising amount of sensitivity while creating a palpable sense of impending interdimensional doom.

Shane Carruth plays a therapist on the edge of his own nervous breakdown whose latest patient, a catatonic John Doe, also happens to be a carrier for some sort of soul sucking demon. This "mouth of death" claims a few victims on the ward, while a curious medical examiner puts together the clues that lead towards a climax of apocalyptic proportions.

Since The Dead Center is an obscure indie, the apocalypse is definitely on a budget. But everything else about the movie is spot-on, especially the acting, which elevates the material to something much more interesting than the latest Blumhouse dead-teenager flick. Senese's camera work is full of carefully controlled dread, giving the entire project the feel of one of Mike Flanagan's early projects. It's a horror film that leaves you flat on the floor, utilizing (but never exploiting) the inherent fear of mental illness tucked away in the back of all our minds.

Arrow Video's presentation is as wonderful as you'd expect from a 2018 release. Extras include two commentaries, in-depth Making Of, deleted scenes, interviews and a pair of Senese's earlier short films that inspired the feature.