This is one of the most boring ghost movies I've ever seen. The strange thing is that it's set up like some sort of action movie with an FBI team invading a derelict prison for what seems to be a forensic investigation but in fact turns into a paranormal investigation. Right from the start, the movie has lost all credibility, and with that gone, the chances for a decent ghost story are practically out the window. In fact, the movie doesn't even start with ghosts but with a porn scene, right off the start insulting its core audience. The FBI team investigating the location describe vague events of a major riot in the prison and end up discovering a female vagrant living on the site, the woman from the first scene, and with no reason whatsoever, they lock her up in a cell until they figure out what to do with her. From here, the movie has no conscionable plot; it seems as if it's being made up as its going along by three to four directors each making their own movie. The agents report unseen haunting activity and start getting picked off by experiencing terrible visions of death or aspects of their greatest wishes turned against them that take them far beyond the prison. One African-American guard, for example, is spirited far beyond the prison to the 1960s South where he's murdered by the Ku Klux Klan. Another is butchered by the willowy ladies he thinks were going to seduce him. This is probably the only interesting aspect of the movie which also treads through one female agent getting possessed, a reported cycle of disasters that occur the same years apart and a presence that reportedly alters the perceptions of reality in the agents. This is one of the most incoherent, poorly executed so- called horror movies I've ever seen. The acting is tedious, the plot confusing, the profanity endless and the ending poorly conceived. The setting was filmed in the former Linda Vista Community Hospital in Los Angeles, and despite supposedly being abandoned, parts of it look like an empty doctor's office while others look like an empty parking garage. Bottom line: this is not a movie. This is more like the first draft of a movie before recasting, re-scripting and adding the special effects. The majority of this movie is just plain awful; more evidence that some people just should not be actors or directors.
Review of 616: Paranormal Incident
