I wouldn't pay big money to see it, maybe I wouldn't even retrieve a CD out of the $5 bin. However, this movie is a fine way to spend a rainy afternoon or evening in front of the television without expending a lot of mental power.
The story is a familiar one: a group of young people go into a building to die. Sure, there's always a reason for them to be there to die, but even though the reasons vary, they are there to die. In this case, the story behind them being there is thin: Jacob needs to prove his aunt is dead by retrieving a death certificate.
As other people have pointed out, this proof of death would probably already have been recorded. However, given the almost-immediate occurrence of the fire following his aunt's death and considering how thoroughly some bodies may have been consumed, I'll give the film makers that one. The problem is not so much then, that Jacob must retrieve proof of her death--it's just that he doesn't want to wait to do it. His sense of entitlement is what leads to everyone's death. Without that sense of entitlement, the woman behind the desk would not have given him "admittance," which would have kept him, at least, from being consumed by the hospital.
A lot of people had complaints about Jacob's friend, Dell. Dell was nothing more than a stereotype, according to these complaints--however--he was exactly the type of person that Jacob would have kept around him. An entitled person like Jacob wouldn't care very much about another person's ethics, as long as he could benefit from the other person's abilities and associates. Dell was there to provide Jacob with whatever he needed and, in the movie, he was there to provide Jacob with the ability to break in and to steal something. He was willing to do something for Jacob because of money, not due to any fealty to Jacob. Each was using the other. Dell could have been any race or either sex--it was simply unfortunate that the producers chose the most stereotypical of the types (then again--diversity, you know).
I think that the story was interesting enough, as far as it goes. The back and forth through time made it something of a poor person's "The Shining." This back and forth made the story seem more complex than it actually was: Jacob was admitted to the hospital to make amends for his being removed in the first place. It was an inevitable end the second he received permission to enter, when the form "admitted" him to Eloise. Remember what the film said--once you're admitted to Eloise, you can never leave. The others were just collateral damage. The homeless man was not Dr. Greiss, as another poster pointed out. Rather, he was the orderly that grabbed Jacob and pulled him back into the building and back into the past. He didn't say anything to Jacob when they encountered each other at the beginning of the movie, but the orderly somehow recognized him for who he was--perhaps due to the admittance form.
The movie relied to heavily on chance encounters. However, it seems entirely possible that, if you go back to Jacob's father's death, their encounters were not as random as you might expect. Could it be possible that the suicide set things in motion? Is it possible that the suicide was not a suicide at all? After all, the blood was fresh when Jacob found it. Either the blood was fresh because his father was newly dead or the blood was fresh because the event was supernatural (discounting film maker error, of course). With this theory in mind, then nothing was a coincidence and everything was enacted to bring Jacob back to the hospital, where he could be contained as he "should have" been all those years before.
The biggest problem with this movie, for me, was that none of the characters were particularly likable, with, perhaps the exception of Scott. Every one of them was self-centered and unpleasant, although Pia could be somewhat excused for wanting to protect her brother. Scott was also annoying, until the viewer came to realize that the pictures of him getting lobotomized were real memories and not simply something created by the hospital to frighten him. Of all of the characters, he was the most empathetic. It's too bad that he was not permitted to survive the film, which I think would have made a better ending.
The story is a familiar one: a group of young people go into a building to die. Sure, there's always a reason for them to be there to die, but even though the reasons vary, they are there to die. In this case, the story behind them being there is thin: Jacob needs to prove his aunt is dead by retrieving a death certificate.
As other people have pointed out, this proof of death would probably already have been recorded. However, given the almost-immediate occurrence of the fire following his aunt's death and considering how thoroughly some bodies may have been consumed, I'll give the film makers that one. The problem is not so much then, that Jacob must retrieve proof of her death--it's just that he doesn't want to wait to do it. His sense of entitlement is what leads to everyone's death. Without that sense of entitlement, the woman behind the desk would not have given him "admittance," which would have kept him, at least, from being consumed by the hospital.
A lot of people had complaints about Jacob's friend, Dell. Dell was nothing more than a stereotype, according to these complaints--however--he was exactly the type of person that Jacob would have kept around him. An entitled person like Jacob wouldn't care very much about another person's ethics, as long as he could benefit from the other person's abilities and associates. Dell was there to provide Jacob with whatever he needed and, in the movie, he was there to provide Jacob with the ability to break in and to steal something. He was willing to do something for Jacob because of money, not due to any fealty to Jacob. Each was using the other. Dell could have been any race or either sex--it was simply unfortunate that the producers chose the most stereotypical of the types (then again--diversity, you know).
I think that the story was interesting enough, as far as it goes. The back and forth through time made it something of a poor person's "The Shining." This back and forth made the story seem more complex than it actually was: Jacob was admitted to the hospital to make amends for his being removed in the first place. It was an inevitable end the second he received permission to enter, when the form "admitted" him to Eloise. Remember what the film said--once you're admitted to Eloise, you can never leave. The others were just collateral damage. The homeless man was not Dr. Greiss, as another poster pointed out. Rather, he was the orderly that grabbed Jacob and pulled him back into the building and back into the past. He didn't say anything to Jacob when they encountered each other at the beginning of the movie, but the orderly somehow recognized him for who he was--perhaps due to the admittance form.
The movie relied to heavily on chance encounters. However, it seems entirely possible that, if you go back to Jacob's father's death, their encounters were not as random as you might expect. Could it be possible that the suicide set things in motion? Is it possible that the suicide was not a suicide at all? After all, the blood was fresh when Jacob found it. Either the blood was fresh because his father was newly dead or the blood was fresh because the event was supernatural (discounting film maker error, of course). With this theory in mind, then nothing was a coincidence and everything was enacted to bring Jacob back to the hospital, where he could be contained as he "should have" been all those years before.
The biggest problem with this movie, for me, was that none of the characters were particularly likable, with, perhaps the exception of Scott. Every one of them was self-centered and unpleasant, although Pia could be somewhat excused for wanting to protect her brother. Scott was also annoying, until the viewer came to realize that the pictures of him getting lobotomized were real memories and not simply something created by the hospital to frighten him. Of all of the characters, he was the most empathetic. It's too bad that he was not permitted to survive the film, which I think would have made a better ending.