In the Russian rental – “Claustrophobes: Insomnia”, a horror film from Ireland, devoid, however, of national color and originality, but still worthy of watching before bedtime.
Seven strangers sign a contract with a pharmaceutical company, agreeing to test a new drug on themselves. It seems that this is how Robert Rodriguez earned his first film, but the heroes of “Claustrophobes”, gathered in the laboratory, decided to become guinea pigs not out of love for art and have no intention of making any movies. However, whatever their future plans may be, it is hardly possible to carry them out: very soon it becomes clear that everything happening to them is at best a horror, if not snuff. The test subjects first stop sleeping, and when they finally can no longer endure, they become victims of their own nightmares. In addition, the entire staff disappears without a trace from the laboratory, and when the exhausted seven try to escape, sirens wail in the corridors, locks rattle – and the space surrounding the heroes becomes enclosed in the most literal sense of the word.
Most prominent Irish horrors of recent times are somehow connected to local realities, whether it be the rich Irish folklore, not only with leprechauns (Corin Hardy’s “The Hallow”, Lee Cronin’s “The Hole in the Ground”, Chris Baugh’s “Boys from County Hell”), national stereotypes like unrestrained drinking (John Wright’s “Grabbers”), or just unique landscapes like forest glades or the suburbs of Dublin (Richard Waters’ “From the Dark”, Kate Dolan’s “You Are Not My Mother”). Compared to them, Ian Hunt-Duffy’s feature debut looks glaringly unrelated: the film’s origins can only be seen from the logos of the production companies in the opening credits, there is not a single redhead among the test subjects, and the same experiment can easily be imagined in the settings of California, the Philippines, or even aboard the International Space Station. This impersonality gives the happening a peculiar charm of a clean scheme, but at the same time deprives the opportunity to find any difference between the new “Claustrophobes” and a dozen other films cut from the same cloth.
But overall, the experiment can be considered successful. Although the main attention here is given to the characters’ wakefulness and the nightmarish dreams that drive them to the grave are shown only in fleeting, albeit quite effective episodes, so at some point it starts to feel like watching the third episode of “A Nightmare on Elm Street” from which all scenes with Freddy have been cut. Although, of course, the residents of the Springwood psychiatric clinic themselves looked more interesting without Krueger, and it is worth mentioning with regret that the viewer almost has no chance to distinguish the characters from each other, so one has to rely on formal signs like gender or hairstyle. As for the truly unexpected moments, one cannot fail to note the remarkably accurate and penetrating use of the melody of the song “Korobeiniki”, known to the world from the “Tetris” theme: a few notes sung with a trembling voice make your skin crawl.
In the original, Hunter-Duffy’s film is called “Double Blind” (meaning “double-blind study”, where not only the test subjects, but also the experimenters do not know until the end which specific effects the participants are being subjected to), but in the domestic rental, of course, it acquired a title that combined familiar elements of horror for horror consumers. Today this is already the seventh film in the Russian rental with the word “Claustrophobes” in the title and the third – with “Insomnia”, but so far they have not converged. And in this case, it seems that for this film – as if suspended in a space between a survival quest and a oneiric horror – the transformer title turned out to be absolutely appropriate. And exhaustive.
Released in theaters on March 7th