A Cure for Wellness

Madder than a box of frogs - or should that be an isolation chamber of eels? - director Gore Verbinski's rather meandering supernatural fantasy remains an elegant elixir-of-life shocker. Financial whizzkid Lockhart (Dane DeHaan), out to curry favour with his company's bigwigs, is sent to retrieve his ailing boss who's undergoing treatment at a strange clinic high in the Swiss Alps. However, once Lockhart is forced to become a patient after breaking his leg, he starts delving into the spa's signature illness and its miraculous remedies formulated by the mysterious Dr Volmer (Jason Isaacs), and the full age-old horror is nightmarishly uncovered. Verbinski choreographs his game cast through a preposterously engaging scenario with a fluid command of the genre, and the film is meticulously stylish throughout thanks to resplendent visuals and sharp attention to design detail, especially in the vast laboratory labyrinth. Despite things turning rather unsavoury, Verbinski's first scary movie since his remake of The Ring in 2002 is saved by echoing classic Hammer horror in a delightfully arcane climax, and is surely bound for curio cultdom.