Macabre…ish Horror Review: The Mad Hatter

The Mad Hatter, 2021/ 1 hr 30 min

Students, Henry (Samuel Caleb Walker), Ian (Nick Miller), Chelsey (Isadora Cruz) and Val (Rachel Brunner) and their professor, David Hart (Armando Gutierrez) go to a haunted mansion to do a psychological study. The first evening they are hypnotized and Ian has a strong terrifying memory about being alone in an orphanage and Henry sees a strange man in the corner of the room, watching them.

That night, they all have nightmares, mostly about traumatic pasts. Later, in a sitting room full of hats, they’re joking around and realize all the hats are adorned with one tooth and that realization ends the party.

But they head to the cellar to snoop around and get spooked by a caretaker. They get out with a scrap book and a few old bottles of wine. The alcohol is not helping, the hallucinations are getting worse and more real, the longer they stay.

They are having more physical interactions with spirits that include injuries that they do not remember getting. Val spits out all her teeth while brushing them and Chelsey starts believe they are all being poisoned and are hallucinating. She and Henry flee from the caretakers and but they don’t get far before Chelsey’s hurt and the scene changes again and Henry open’s his eye’s in the professor’s office.

It all culminates in violence and some terrible truths, choices have to be made and the question is, how much of this was real or are they still dreaming?

This psychological thriller directed by Catherine (Cate) Devaney is a mostly ethereal and trippy movie full of nightmares, visual and audio hallucinations, visions and supernatural occurrences. If you do not pay attention to this movie it will make no sense and will be a chore to watch.

The CG is mostly good except when a certain character shows up. The audio worked really well to set the tone from scene to scene, I would have been lost without it. There are some bloody and gory moments that happen more frequently as the story goes on. There are some jump scares and one of the characters is truly terrifying.

I understand why this movie is called The Mad Hatter but that character is a very small part of this story in his monstrous form and I was disappointed that he wasn’t much more prominent. It does come together in the end but it is a long winding road to get there. If you like intricate stories with lots of twists and moving parts, you might like this. Plus the legendary Michael Berryman is also in the cast.