Eloise (2016 film)

Eloise
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Robert Legato
Written by	Christopher Borrelli
Produced by	Sanford Nelson Tripp Vinson
Starring	Eliza Dushku Robert Patrick Chace Crawford Brandon T. Jackson Nicole Forester P. J. Byrne
Cinematography	Antonio Riestra
Edited by	Greg D'Auria
Music by	Ronen Landa
Production companies	SLAM Productions Palm Drive Productions Vinson Films
Distributed by	Vertical Entertainment
Release dates	December 28, 2016 (2016-12-28) (Indonesia) December 30, 2016 (2016-12-30) (Vietnam) February 3, 2017 (2017-02-03) (United States)
Running time	89 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Eloise is a 2016 American thriller film directed by Robert Legato and written by Christopher Borrelli. The film stars Eliza Dushku, Robert Patrick, Chace Crawford, Brandon T. Jackson, Nicole Forester, and P. J. Byrne. The film was released on February 3, 2017, by Vertical Entertainment.

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Plot

We open with pictures and audio about the real Eloise asylum and the fire that destroyed the building in 1982. The first scene shows a woman named Pia in an asylum being questioned by a detective. The detective shows Pia some pictures and tells her that they found her brother and friend's deceased bodies, but don't know where her friend Jacob is.

Jacob is working on a car and is contacted by an attorney to let him know his father has passed away. After meeting with the attorney, Jacob is told he is going to get $1,200,000, but he has to prove that an unknown aunt has passed away also. Jacob finds out that even though his dad had cancer, the cancer didn't kill him he decided to take his own life. Jacob goes to his father's house and retrieves a weird box containing various items and a drawing of an old Chevy. While looking through the contents, an unknown person has broken into the house. Jacob goes into his father's room where he committed suicide and is startled by his friend Dell. Dell steals a pocket watch, and then they go to a bar to hang out. Pia is the bartender and makes Jacob buy a round for the whole bar because it's his birthday. Dell tells Jacob that he needs 20 grand, and Jacob agrees to help him if Dell agrees to help Jacob get his aunt's records. When Jacob goes to the asylum to pick up the records, he notices that it's been sent to the annex building. He would need a court order to get the rest of the records which could take six to seven months. After bribing the clerk he leaves, she types up an admission to the asylum for Jacob.

Jacob accidentally backs up into a shopping cart filled with trash bags. He apologizes to a homeless man, but the guy doesn't say a word. Jacob and Dell decide to break into the annex building, but they don't know exactly where the room is located. They look up a guy named Scott who has blueprints to the buildings. They meet up at Scott's house, who is obsessed with the building. When they are talking about to breaking into the building Pia walks in revealing she is actually Scott's sister.

After breaking in, they hear a bang from a police officer. He walks in and shines his torch around and then leaves after not finding anything. They find the annex room, and it's loaded with hundreds of filing cabinets. Dell drops the pocket watch he stole earlier, and it shows a flashback of orderlies punching patients. Pia walks past the maternity ward, and after a flashback of nurses holding babies it cuts back to Pia seeing a child holding a box. Scott uses his infrared camera and sees human figures. While looking through patient files, we see flashbacks of the patients being forced to face their fears and shock therapy.

Scott sees pictures of himself on the wall, and then orderlies forcing him onto a bed. This causes him to fall over crashing through the floor onto a gurney waiting below with orderlies pushing it. Jacob finds his aunt's records, and Dell sees the pocket watch behind a locked door. He knocks out the glass to unlock the door, making him cut his hand. After stealing a bunch of medication, he accidentally pours LSD onto his hand instead of peroxide. This causes him to hallucinate, and after seeing visions he pulls out a gun. Scott is then shown being forced onto a bed by doctors and nurses from the past and then the doctor proceeds to hammer a sharp tool into his eye. Dell shoots at hallucinations and then finds himself in a locked room filled with dead bodies. After accidentally breaking a water line, the room begins to fill with water and hands begin to drag him down killing him. Jacob and Pia look for Scott and begin to hear music and visions of an art class from the past. They see their own drawings on the wall, and patients begin to fight with the staff cheering them on. When they snap back to the present they see who they assume is Scott and chase him down the halls. This leads to them finding Scott's dead body and the homeless guy from earlier. Suddenly they are back in the past with the staff chasing them around the asylum.

We see the doctor lecture to a bunch of onlookers explaining fears. Jacob is seen strapped to a gurney with his biggest fear being claustrophobia and is forced into a morgue drawer. Pia is scared of injections, and is then punctured many times. Pia frees herself and runs from the staff, she finds a nurse uniform and casually walks through the hospital looking for Jacob. She finds and releases Jacob from the drawer. They accidentally run into Guinevere Martin's room and notice that she is pregnant and about to give birth on Jacob's birthday. After realizing Guinevere is actually his mother, he walks into her room and tells her he is Jacob from present day. Guinevere whispers into the nurses ear, and the nurse promises that baby Jacob would be given to her brother so he wouldn't be raised in the asylum. Baby Jacob is then placed into the box from the beginning, and the little girl is shown to be a young Pia. Young Pia is instructed to deliver baby Jacob. The doctor is shown to be Jacob's father, and then slaps Pia's mother for hiding baby Jacob. Jacob knows the fire was started on this day, but he decides to make the fire bigger by pouring chemicals everywhere. After starting the fire and everyone runs out Jacob is pulled back into hospital, but Pia flashes back to the present. Back in present time the building is on fire, and Pia is distraught about her brother and friends being killed. Pia is shown in the ward from the beginning looking at pictures. Flash back to the past with the Doctor happy that he finally got his son back and a nurse with Jacob's birth certificate checking off that he was born but is now dead.

Cast

Eliza Dushku as Pia Carter
Robert Patrick Dr. H. H. Greiss
Chace Crawford as Jacob Martin
Brandon T. Jackson as Dell Richards
Nicole Forester Genevieve Martin
P. J. Byrne as Scott Carter
Ricky Wayne as Detective Frazier

Production

On April 25, 2014, Chace Crawford, Eliza Dushku, Brandon T. Jackson and P. J. Byrne joined the cast.^[1] Principal photography began on May 5, 2014.^[2]

It was shot in and around Metropolitan Detroit, and was financed in part by a $2 million Michigan film incentive subsidy from the State of Michigan.^[3] Much of it was filmed at Eloise.^[A]

Release

The film was released on February 3, 2017, by Vertical Entertainment.^[5]

Critical reception

Critic John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that it is "An incoherent, time-hopping paranormal tale." It offered condolences to the actual staff of Eloise.^[6]

The New York Times declared it, "A horror movie of such ineptitude that it invites sympathy for even its least gifted participants."^[7]

Variety was dismissive: "A notorious former insane asylum turns out — surprise! — to be a bad place to visit in this generic horror opus. Reasonably slick but empty, 'Eloise' is no Session 9 as far as haunted-former-mental-hospital horrors go. Heck, it's not even a Grave Encounters 2."^[4]

The Village Voice said it all in the title of its article.^[8]

Rotten Tomatoes gave it an 11% rating.^[9] On Metacritic it has a score of 15% based on reviews from 6 critics, indicating "overwhelming dislike".^[10]

References

Notes

^ "The Eloise of the title isn’t a children’s-book heroine, but the name of an actual eastern Michigan mental institution that existed for 150 years, and was for a time the country’s largest — comprising 78 buildings on more than 900 acres. That much is true, although an opening text crawl goes on to spin some fictive hooey about rumored "inhumane testing and treatment" overseen by psychiatric chief Dr. H.H. Greiss (Robert Patrick), as well as a "devastating fire" that shuttered the facility in 1982."^[4]