What is “The Institution”?

Good question, you people always ask good questions.

I was wondering the same thing when I came across their My Space page. The page is called “The Assignment” but the trailer is for a movie called “The Institution” and if you go to the Website your greeted with two choices:

1. The Institution

2. The Assignment

Confused?

Me too, lets get to the bottom of it all.

The simple answer is “The Institution” is a completed short, “The Assignment” is an unfinished feature length film.

History:

“The Assignment” is the idea of Brad LaMar and Clayton Monical. While living together as college roommates, Brad came up with the idea for a movie during a tour of an old building in his home town. He wanted “to make a movie based on how frightening the place looked and felt,” and after pitching the idea to Clayton, the two wrote the script for the feature length film, which they describe as :”if the “X Files” and “Session 9” had a child”.

Through the use of school equipment and no budget, they managed to shoot a teaser and trailer for the film. Then over the next three years they created a 30 person crew and a $12,000 budget to make a section of “The Assignment” script into a short film called “The Institution” which you can watch the trailer for Here. They plan to use “The Institution” to build a fan base and to improve “The Assigment” until they can “hopefully” get a theatrical release. That’s the kind of initiative we applaud here at Horror Yearbook.

The Institution - Review

So does “The Institution” make you want to see “The Assignment”?

Yes!

The short film is a bit of a tease. Only 14 minutes long, it abruptly ends just as things are getting good. This is a great idea because it left me wanting more, especially with the prospect of a longer version with a bigger budget and better actors. You can see where “The Institution” suffers from budget constraints, but in the world of horror (and at Horror Yearbook) you never take off points for those reasons. The movie seemed dubbed because, for certain reasons, they had to do the sound in a studio and not on the set, but the impressive thing is that it was shot on 16mm and looks great. “Saw” is a multi-million dollar franchise and we forgave them for those awful test scenes they used in their final product.

One thing the budget constraints don’t affect are the special effects. The opening scene is a gory delight that has the look and feel of a movie with more money in the bank. Our “creature,” or escaped psychopath, looks great, (even though he is a little fey when he tries to break down the door our victims are hiding behind). Just picture the goons that hung around The Gentlemen in the Buffy Vampire Slayer episode “Hush”.

The movie is about three forensic college students who travel to the remote Felt Island, home of an abandonded mental hospital, to solve a forensic cold case for a school project. When they stumble on a mutilated city official, they get stuck on the island with no escape while being chased by some kind of creature. Their once innocent school project quickly takes a turn for the worse.

I’m not big on short-films, but “The Institution” did it’s job by getting me interested in seeing more from Brad LaMar and Clayton Monical. Now it’s just time as fans to do our job and help them see “The Assignment” made. I’m not sure how you can see a version of “The Institution.” Hopefully it will make some film festival rounds. It has already played at “Chicago Horror Festival” and “Thiller Chiller Festival” in 2006, but if you get a chance I would check it out because it does have some great potential, and we need to support films like this within our genre.

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