Crazy As Hell [DVD]

Actor Michael Beach of THIRD WATCH, WAITING TO EXHALE, and numerous other projects, portray a psychiatrist/doctor who knows everything about dealing with emotionally/mentally disturbed patients, but never caught a clue when his own daughter took her own life. Moving his practice, he's invited to work at a mental hospital and seems to have the answers for how to cure and/or control the patients, and is willing to do it his way, whether the director likes it or not. His pride being his biggest flaw, he meets his match with his latest patient, played by Eriq LaSalle. Dressed to the nines with a eloquent manner and speech, he addresses himself as Satan and wants to use the doctor's help in overhauling his image, because it's become a real drag in being the so-called "bad guy" in every disaster on this earth, no matter how big or small. From this point, the psychological aspects come in as to whether this guy is really crazy, or is he really the prince of darkness? What does he really want with the doctor, or is this a very elaborate scam? Truly, a thinking movie that runs deeper than the norm, and that made it a hit with me.

Director/co-star Eriq LaSalle's CRAZY AS HELL is an enigmatic, disturbing movie--is it a horror movie or is it a psychological thriller, or is it a little of both? It's pacing is more cerebral, and its plot thick with premonitions and suggestions. What is it with the hospital anyway? Patients are allowed to run loose in the halls. Patients acquire trophies and brooms. They are all on medication. Enter the idealistic doctor who thinks he can "cure" these people, take them off their medication, and send them all home. At this point, the movie has a surreal quality. Psychiatrists DON'T go into their patient's rooms and sneak around. Psychiatrists DON'T tell the patient why they are behaving like they are. The patient's rooms are like low budget motels, but still very well kept. And then enters the patient who says he's Satan. This is all shrouded in complex scenes wherein our good doctor starts talking to his dead wife and daughter. By the way, he is responsible for his daughter's suicide because he wouldn't prescribe her medicine.

Michael Beach plays the doctor with a smug assuredness, that belies a man who seems to be falling apart. LaSalle as Satan has the pompacity of Isaac Hayes, the swagger of Denzel Washington and the quiet menace of Tony Todd. Stalwart Ronny Cox plays the head honcho with his usual smarmy smugness, with an undertone of more. John C. McGinley as the director of the video is cleverly malevolent and conspiratorial. Tracy Pettit as the patient the doctor vows to cure and win a bet on, to boot, has little dialogue, but she has the vacant composure of a mentally challenged young woman.

All in all, CRAZY AS HELL is a very different kind of movie, one that might lead you to question YOUR religious predilections. Kudos to LaSalle for the innovativeness on such a low budget.

This was a really good film of which I knew nothing about before finding it while browsing through the shelf at the video store. Great dialogue from beginning to end. I don't want to spoil it for you, but it certainly gives some good insight on those with "God-complexes".