Asylum Blackout 2012

As the rain-drenched streets of Washington DC in 1989 began to fade together, the once inseparable bond between George (Rupert Evans), Max (Kenny Doughty), and Ricky (Joseph Kennedy) started to unravel. The group’s musical dreams were slowly suffocated by their personal dysfunction; Ricky’s unreliability, Max’s childish antics, and George’s growing disconnection due to his newfound romance with Lynn (Anna Skellern). To make ends meet, they took on jobs in the cafeteria of a criminally insane asylum, working alongside William (Marcus Garvey) and the patients. George, who held the title of head chef, found pride in creating culinary masterpieces and extending kindness to the inmates, whose calm demeanor was primarily due to their medication. Notably, one inmate in particular, Harry Green (Richard Brake), sent chills down George’s spine.

After an exhausting rock show, George stumbled into the kitchen at the end of the night, only to be met with a torrential downpour and a series of chilling omens: chicken heads, his own self-inflicted injury, and an explosive outburst directed at his bandmates and Harry, who seemed to scrutinize him with disturbing focus. His anxiety escalated when he witnessed Harry ostensibly persuading another patient to reject their medication.

Despite Max’s recommendation for George to take a quick nap while he prepared dinner, the chef’s rest barely lasted. Hours later, chaos shattered the calm—a loud explosion rocked the kitchen, followed by the grim announcement that the power had gone out and all exit doors were now locked. The gathered inmates turned restless in the dining room, monitored closely by the head guard, who enlisted George and William to escort them back to their cells.

Unbeknownst to the kitchen staff, a far darker scenario was unfolding within the asylum. While George and William successfully rounded up the inmates, they discovered that the locks on all doors had malfunctioned. Upon returning to the kitchen, they were met with an eerie stillness; the head guard was nowhere to be found, and Ricky and Max had barricaded themselves in the freezer.

A crucial moment arrived when a band of inmates broke through the kitchen doors, showering chaos on the once-tranquil dining area. In the ensuing turmoil, George, William, and Max managed to escape unnoticed amidst the chaos. However, Ricky, unwilling to abandon the freezer, left his friends to navigate the perilous circumstances alone. As the asylum descended into anarchy, George caught a glimpse of Harry, who seemed to relish the upheaval, his face twisted in a twisted grin as if he were orchestrating the pandemonium.

In a panic, George, Max, and William sought answers but stumbled upon the grotesque sight of the decapitated head guard. Their desperate aim to escape led them into the sanctuary of the head guard’s office, where they attempted and failed to reach authorities through a landline, only to be met with the grim reality that help wouldn’t arrive for at least an hour.

Meanwhile, Ricky met his gruesome fate at the hands of the inmates, impaled before George, Max, and William. Harry’s insidious urging incited the inmates to storm the head guard’s office, sparking a brutal showdown that concluded with the cooks emerging victorious at a harrowing price: Max lost his nose in the violent scuffle.

In an act of sheer desperation, the trio sprinted to the kitchen, but George was knocked unconscious, and Max fell into captivity. Upon regaining consciousness, George found himself restrained and exposed on a table, forced to watch as the inmates reduced Max to ashes on the stove top. An additional inmate began to mutilate George, yet eventually relented at his desperate pleas.

As George’s world spiraled into madness, Harry reemerged, bizarrely devouring his own fingers with a disturbingly gleeful expression, leaving George feeling utterly ineffectual. The long-awaited sound of police sirens pierced the chaos, and William led the authorities into the kitchen, just as Harry vanished without a trace.

In the aftermath, George was wheeled out of the asylum on a stretcher, fleetingly gazing at the corpse of Harry—his fingers intact—implying that George’s chilling encounters with Harry might have been mere hallucinations throughout this harrowing ordeal. The narrative then jumps forward, revealing George in a hospital bed, with Lynn weeping by his side as he stares vacantly into space, seemingly ravaged by his traumatic experiences.

In a surreal final twist, the camera zooms into George’s psyche, where he inexplicably finds himself back in the cafeteria, alongside his bandmates, with the inmates still roaming free, leaving questions lingering in the audience’s mind.