The Atticus Institute

The U.S. governement is said to have a lot of secret information, of what they have done in secret for many years. This is what most of us would call conspiracy theories. Do i belive that there are operations done by the U.S. governement in secret ? I would not be surprised, at the same time, who knows what really happened, or if anything happened at all. It could all be theories. To belive something, i have to see that there is proof, or real evidence, otherwise it would be hard to belive anything at all. There are those moments, where i do get to laugh also, when people say they have proof of crazy things. Like one guy who said he might have found proof that Jesus was gay. Let´s say he was, who cares ? Of course there were gay people in those days, you just don´t talk about that in churches. Or maybe you remember the fake video of the alien autopsy ? People actually belived that the video was real, so if you know how to make a video look real, you can fool many viewers. Conspiracy theories will live on, as long as people belive that higher authorities hide information, and wipe out their traces. Let´s just say that there have been experiments made, on ordinary people, who might have a special talent, what would you say if you watched the actual video footage, filmed on location ? The Atticus Institute is a documentary horror film, supposed to show us what really happened at Atticus Institiute. According to the facts, there were experiments made on patients who were said to be telepathic. We also get to hear new interviews from the people who worked there, who want the truth to come out. Is this a horror documentary better than i expected, or is this another example of why Hollywood should try and find original stories instead ?

In the 70´s, it was revealed that one of the workers at the Atticus Institute have faked sessions with patiens, using his clock to remove objects, to make it look like patients were telepathic. This made Dr. Henry West ( William Mapother ) furious, and it seemed as their project to understand real cases of telepathic people failed. Until one day, when the institute decide to help their new patient Judith Winstead ( Rya Kihlstedt ). As their experiments begin, Dr Henry can tell that she is not fake in any way, she seems to be telepathic. But when the experiments become more complicated and harder to perform, something does not seem right. What is really wrong with Judith, is she maybe more than just telepathic ?

You might think that this is another found footage horror release, don´t worry. The Atticus Institute is acually more like a documentary, but not based on real events of course. We get to hear the story of what happened in the 70´s, hearing from staff of the Atticus Institute, as they tell us their experiences of what happened with their patient Judith Winstead. I am surprised how well they managed to put these pieces together, both from filmed material from the 70´s and the interviews done in present day. It looks good, and the acting is also good. From a possession point of view, we don´t really get anything original, but that´s ok. The strength of The Atticus Institute is that director Chris Sparling, tries to make it look like this really happened for real. The fact that he does not try and use the found footage genre is also a good sign. For those who never heard of Chris Sparling, should know he is a well known writer, for films like Buried ( one of my favourite films with Ryan Reynolds ), and the horror film ATM. He is actually a writer for the forthcoming film Sea Of Trees, with Matthew McConaughey among others. The Atticus Institute is actually his debut film as an director, and i have to say he manage to give us a horror film that deliver enough to feel interesting. There are not too many jump scare scenes here, and i am happy that Chris Sparling decided not to follow that path. Because too many horror films usually use that formula, just to be as scary as possible. I would have liked to have some more small surprises along this documentary, something unexpected. Otherwise i can´t be negative, the documentary style works good here, and the story is solid enough to feel interesting. The Atticus Institute will not give you anything fresh, but at least you get a horror release that at least tries to please the audience. That does not happen very often in these days of desperate film makers.

Rating: DDD