‘Infirmary’ Review: Stale Found Footage Leftovers

Nicholas Pineda’s Infirmary is the equivalent of asking for Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum and being told that you already have found footage at home. While not without its fleeting charms, Infirmary prioritizes decibels over coherence, scares, and atmosphere. It’s certainly loud, and while that might make you jump, you’ll be left as hollow as the titular setting itself when the lights finally come back on.

Found footage, despite its prevalence in the late aughts and early 2010s, isn’t easy. What I love about the format is its innate accessibility. Cool filmmakers can explore cool concepts with comparatively limited resources. Not everything will be The Blair Witch Project, but the likes of Paranormal Activity, Final Prayer, As Above, So Below, Atrocious, The Devil’s Doorway, Hunting Matthew Nichols, and more show just how much cache is left untapped in the annals of shaky-cam scares.

Infirmary, naturally, opens with the subgenre’s trademarked, expository dump. Authorities responded to an “unknown disturbance” at the Wilshire Infirmary late one March evening. Two bodies were found and a “person of interest” remains missing. The footage (the movie) was recovered from the scene and is being presented in its “original” and “uncensored” state (though someone did splice it all together, but why rag on that?).

That in medias res intro rewinds to veteran Edward’s (Paul Syre) first day on the infirmary beat. His boss, Lester (Mark Anthony Williams), is a cad, and the only other person around is human resources rep Ms. Downey (Danielle Kennedy). Infirmary’s seams split right from the get. With just three main players, two of whom are confirmed dead, it’s clear how the night will progress. Worse still, not even protag Edward’s lingering war trauma is given much depth, and the regular, interminable procession of body-cam footage do nothing to imbue any of the characters with even a hint of life. Fitting for the setting, sure, but diabolical in a horror movie.

After all, found footage characters. The beats are almost always the same. A slow-burn with strange noises, doors opening and closing on their own (all of which has) until a chaotic, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it final reel. Ergo, it’s character and atmosphere that sustain interest between the jolts, and might just have reasonably resurrected the long-dead corpses of its setting without much difference. The performances are fine enough, never distracting, but they’re all blank slates with nebulous trauma, rendering it nigh-impossible to muster any interest as the haunted locale’s scares ramp up.