“Infirmary” (2026) is a found footage film that uses body cams and security cameras as the reason for available footage. On Wednesday, March 22, 2023, Edward Yoon (Paul Syre Lee) starts his first day on the job as a security guard at Wilshire Infirmary. Ms. Ambrosia Downey (Danielle Kennedy) hired him, but fellow security guard Lester (Mark Anthony Williams) is his boss. They have 280,000 square feet to monitor either on foot or looking at the surveillance system’s monitors. What happened to them that night? It is a mid to meh film, but at least some of the ideas are original even if they look laughable. Watch “Session 9” (2001) instead unless you are a fan of the horror found footage genre. Don’t say that you were not warned.
Found footage can have some drawbacks: characters that are hard to get invested in or are too annoying, shaky cams or not seeing the horror and a storyline that gets stretched thin. “Infirmary” suffers from all of them, but not to a degree that makes it unwatchable. It just is not a standout. It is the feature debut for director and story conceiver Nicholas Pineda and writer Katy Krauland so while their premiere is not a hell yeah, it also is not a hell no. Production designer Xiyu Lin made the area feel very Backrooms, and the scariest scene is when Edward looks at himself in a mirror in a bathroom.
Edward describes himself as a former marine who was in active combat with a service-connected injury, but his demeanor dispels a lot of notions about how a marine acts. He comes across as an unreliable narrator, a complete follower and people pleaser. He agrees to statements when it is clearly the wrong answer, possesses the survival instincts of a gnat next to a bug zapper, obeys dubious orders and disobeys orders that would keep him safe. Overall, he seems well intentioned and not harmful, but he is clearly not cut out for this job before anything gets weird. Once things start to go south, he has the fortitude of a baby deer on thin ice. If he is the guy watching your back, you would be better off alone. While Lee does his job, his performance is not so captivating that anyone will be begging for him to take center stage for another movie. He has a long list of credits, mostly in television, and a handful in movies so let’s see how he does. He is on the board, but not a standout….yet?
Lester is an asshole, but as “Infirmary” unfolds, he grows on you because of his reaction to Edward’s antics when Edward forgets that his boss is probably watching him through the system. Because of how they meet, Lester makes Edward pay for his insecurities, is a showboat, and shows a brief flash of racism that only emerges one more time, but is not obvious. The good news is that Lester’s real function is prose dumping about the history of the place, which includes experiments, mannequins and routine patient deaths. Remember the mannequins. Lester gets a back story, is proud of his position, especially his little patch of power, and freedom from oversight. It is a Herculean feat that Williams manages to make such an odious man into someone that a viewer may begin to show concern and root for, but the story requires too much suspension of disbelief that he could survive for so long until that night. Ok. Sure.
Kennedy is a standout and makes the horror possible in “Infirmary.” Ms. Downey is totally ordinary, but also eerie. When Edward knocks on her closed office door, a second does not pass before she opens it, which means that she was just standing there waiting for him to arrive and standing there for who knows how long. When he leaves, her office door is open, and before editor Noah Kistler cuts to a different area of surveillance, she just sits frozen in the same position doing nothing. Also, the best part of the found footage occurs when she roams the halls so keep your eyes riveted to the screen for her jaunts. If you look at photos of Kennedy in real life, she is lovely, but wardrobe, makeup and hair make her look sus as if she is eerie. There are no answers on her deal until the closing.
The opening and closing of “Infirmary” show written information on screen regarding what happened, and the closing undercuts everything that came before. The concluding paragraph contradicts what happens in the found footage, which is exactly why found footage is harder than most filmmakers think. It may be an inexpensive way of making a film, but there are still rules. There are two possible theories that could make it work. The writing comes from the Department of Justice investigative arm, the FBI. Why would they be investigating a local disappearance and two murders? It could just be sloppy writing. On the other hand, if it is true, is the footage somehow capturing what Edward is subjectively thinking happened? Also, no because this is not that kind of movie.
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Is Ms. Downey actually the real Ms. Downey who investigators found dead or really Mrs. Wilshire? Was Lester messing with Edward when he said to go to Ms. Downey’s office because he knew that she did not exist? Later Edward asks if Lester ate with Ms. Downey in the cafeteria, and Lester gets offended, which makes me believe that Mrs. Wilshire used the joke as an opportunity to meet Edward so she could lure him to the basement. On the other hand, Mrs. Downey is found dead, but that could be another person who died because the onscreen Mrs. Downey was not a normal or real person.
Was Edward a veteran? Probably not because of the way that he acted. It is implied based on his basement descent with Mrs. Downey that he may have spent time in a mental institution, so she wanted to experiment on him. He also said that he cannot sleep, which would drive anyone into a mental health crisis. Based on the footage, he killed no one so is he the patsy for the FBI to cover up of the supernatural shenanigans?
“Infirmary” does not create the impression that Pineda and Krauland thought thoroughly about how the dialogue, the onscreen action, and opening and closing would coalesce to form a cohesive whole. It does not. If you disagree and have a theory, feel free to write in because maybe I missed something. Maybe some of the dialogue is improvised, which would explain the plot holes. The mannequin idea feels original, and it is hard to come up with fresh ideas, but it verges on looking ridiculous. The filmmakers need to work on consistent quality work throughout the story, not just in flashes.
