If you do care about mental health, if you do care about storyline pacing and exploration of a character’s descent into darkness, then you’ll find “Enter the Dangerous Mind” to be unsatisfying and banal. Otherwise if you don’t and want a popcorn psychological horror film, then “Enter the Dangerous Mind” may be for you!
TITLE: Enter the Dangerous Mind
FILM RELEASE: 2013
DURATION: 90 Minutes
BLU-RAY DISC INFORMATION: 1080p High Definition, 2:55:1 Aspect Ratio, English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, Subtitles: English SDH
COMPANY: Well Go USA Entertainment
RATED: N/A
Release Date: April 14, 2015
Directed by Youseef Delara, Victor Teran
Written by Victor Teran
Produced by Ryland Aldrich, Amir Delara, Youssef Delara, Victor Teran
Co-Producer: Nate Bishop, Puneet Comar, Shilash Patel, Maury Rogow
Executive Producer: Forest B. Hamilton, Elaine King Henderson, Anthony Jabre, Jeremy Platt, Reza Safinia
Music by Reza Safinia
Cinematography by Ben Kufrin
Edited by Youssef Delara, John Wesley Whitton
Casting by Derek J. Marquardt
Production Design by Seth Reed
Art Direction by Jennifer Mollier
Set Decoration by Natalie Pope
Costume Design by Alisha Silverstein
Starring:
Nikki Reed as Wendy
Jake Hoffman as Jim Whitman
Thomas Dekker as Jake
Scott Bakula as Kevin
Jason Priestley as Dr. Dubrow
Music makes the voices stop. That s what Jim (Jake Hoffman) wants most to hide away in his apartment, mixing original dubstep beats as a soundtrack to the insanity of daily life. But it s not working too well lately. His brother (Thomas Dekker) bullies him into pursuing social worker Wendy (Nikki Reed), and their intimate encounter sparks an obsession that turns Jim into a human time bomb. Also starring Scott Bakula, Jason Priestley, and Gina Rodriguez, ENTER THE DANGEROUS MIND is a terrifying study of mental illness, and the destruction unleashed when you finally SNAP.
Filmmaker Youssef Delara is known for his visual effects work on “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” and “Star Trek: Voyager” and filmmaker Victor Teran is known for his indie film “Bedrooms”.
The two have joined forces to create the psychological thriller “Enter the Dangerous Mind” starring Jake Hoffman (“Click”, “The Wolf of Wall Street”, “Rain Man”), Nikki Reed (“Twilight” films), Thomas Dekker (“Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles”, “A Nightmare on Elm Street”), Scott Bakula (“Enterprise”, “Quantum Leap”) and Jason Priestley (“Beverly Hills, 90210”, “Tombstone”).
The film will be released on Blu-ray in April 2015 courtesy of Well Go USA.
“Enter the Dangerous Mind” revolves around Jim (portrayed by Jake Hoffman) who creates his own dubstep mixes. He is constantly bothered by voices in his head…Jake (portrayed by Thomas Dekker) who keeps telling Jim that he is a loser and he can’t get women and everything he does is wrong.
To keep Jake out, Jim uses music as a way to express himself but to keep the voices out.
One day, he visits a women’s shelter and meets Wendy (portrayed by Nikki Reed) and the two go out on a date. But after a mishap on the date, the voices of Jake begin to escalate and starts to take control of Jim, who then embarks on a deadly, dark path.
VIDEO:
“Enter the Dangerous Mind” is presented in 1080p High Definition (2:34:1 aspect ratio). There is no doubt that the film utilizes a lot of intentional color grading, almost throughout the film. So, picture quality tends to shift during certain scenes throughout the film.
For the most part, picture quality is good and I saw no artifacts or banding issues.
AUDIO:
“Enter the Dangerous Mind” is presented in English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio. The film is primarily dialogue driven via center and front-channels and its soundtrack is boosted by its use of EDM, so expect the music to be the major player with crystal clear music and use of panning effects being utilized in the surround channels.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
“Enter the Dangerous Mind” comes with a theatrical trailer.
While horror films or psychological thrillers based on metal illness is nothing new to films on the big screen, during these days of political correctness and trying to support the treatment of mental illness, “Enter the Dangerous Mind” is a film is one of those unfortunate films that will entertain others for its music and horror, while leaving those who know of someone with mental illness, in awe of its insensitive, audacious storyline.
The character of Jim (portrayed by Jake Hoffman) who has a mental illness and has a problem of blocking out Jake (portrayed by Thomas Dekker), who we are to believe is his roommate, but is not difficult to figure out within the opening moments of the film that the character is all in Jim’s head.
Wanting to find a woman (thanks to the urging of the voice of Jake), he ends up going after Wendy (portrayed by Nikki Reed), who works in the same office as his social worker Kevin (portrayed by Scott Bakula).
While the film starts to establish Jim as a EDM musical genius, the film starts to morph into Jim’s chaotic descent into darkness after he prematurely ejaculates on himself after making out with Wendy and now the voices brought upon by Jake affects him.
For the sake of music, the film takes away from further exploring the character of Jim. The pacing of the film is entirely off and characters are hurt or weakened because the character development of Jim is poor. Too much went into the the EDM and trying to morph Jim from this silent, music genius to a person with mental health issues and next thing you know, the film tries to throw its horror card by showing how Jeff’s descent has now made him to a psycho killer and trying to show how twisted and sadistic he can be?
Overall, I felt the film’s pacing was off! There was not enough exploration of the character and what drives him to become a psycho-killer. But with that being said, for those who love mindless horror and psychological thrillers that don’t make you want to think all that much, then “Enter the Dangerous Mind” is for you. The film tries to captivate you with its music, its disgusting horror moments and its approach to mental illness.
But if you do care about mental health, if you do care about storyline pacing and exploration of a character’s descent into darkness, then you’ll find “Enter the Dangerous Mind” to be unsatisfying and banal. Otherwise if you don’t and want a popcorn psychological horror film, then “Enter the Dangerous Mind” may be for you!
