Directed by Nicholas Pineda and written by Katy Krauland, a guard vanished on his first night at an old psych hospital in 2023. His bodycam footage shows unexplainable incidents that continue to baffle investigators. Starring: Paul Syre Lee, Mark Anthony Williams, Danielle Kennedy and Corinna Wagner-Smith.
If you’re looking for a creepy setting for your horror film, old hotels and hospitals are right up there at the top of the list, along with a cabin in the woods and the old family home where a horrible tragedy occurred, preferably near a body of water or cemetery. So, Nicholas Pineda kicks things off on the right note setting Infirmary in an almost-abandoned psych hospital, with its endless hallways, lack of lighting and remnants of days past littering the rooms in a spooky manner. Something which works even better with the choice that Pineda makes for the early scenes, not necessarily going straight for scary, crafting instead a curious, suspicious atmosphere.
That choice is particularly strengthened by the performance from Paul Syre Lee, he very purposefully makes Edward questionable. There’s something untrustworthy and twitchy about him which helps to kick those notes of mystery off right from the beginning, as you wonder what his real motives are and what he might be hiding. He’s well paired with Mark Anthony Williams as the entrenched security guard with plenty of personality but much less patience. Together they add a sense of humour and a grounded touch to nicely contrast with the eerie setting and the rising tension. The trio is then rounded out superbly by Danielle Kennedy, presenting such a friendly, helpful exterior, while leaving you wondering what’s really going on.
It’s also shot really well, there’s a great mix of angles and shot choices to not limit itself too far while using that found footage format. The cinematography from Donald Nam is also great work, particularly in how it employs those heavy greens and reds, establishing that creepy air. It also has a good consistency to the movement, the pacing and progression are good, but the writing does lack some explanation. There are some excellent beginnings of the supernatural here, helped very much by its mannequins, but it needed to flesh out its motivations and origins to really make the story land.
Infirmary is a solid outing, but it misses the mark on its full potential, as it needed to turn its creepy factor up to eleven. The ingredients are absolutely there, the direction, editing, cinematography and performances are all ticking the right boxes, and the writing is too, up to a certain point. It simply needed to flesh out the story to make a bigger impression and pack a stronger punch. As a debut feature from Nicholas Pineda, it demonstrates a lot of potential, and a definite understanding of the genre and its audience, and if it had expanded its backstory a bit further, this could have been something really great.
