BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Edwin The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Neil Welch This is an interesting movie.To start off with, let me say that the cookie-cutter plot - essentially this is about mysterious deaths taking place in a haunted prison - is poorly executed, the script is not very good (with masses of unresolved plot points, inconsistencies etc.) and cast of largely unknown actors contain some individuals who are not very good.And then it turns out to be made by someone who clearly believes he is making a movie which is about ten grades of quality above its actual level. This thing is well made, with a sense of visual style, special effects which are clearly low budget but nonetheless effective.Unfortunately, it is fatally hobbled by the lacklustre source material. No matter how good the stitching, a sow's ear remains a sow's ear, but it remains interesting watching the disparity between the rubbishy material and the aspiration to make it into something better than it is.

Paul Andrews Furnace starts as Blackgate Prison guard Joey Robbins (Paul Wall) kills himself at home, his wife tells detective Michael Turner (Michael Paré) that there was no reason for her husband to commit suicide. Then later that night a prisoner named Jamison (Taylor Kinney) seemingly also commits suicide at Blackgate, detective Turner feels the two cases are linked somehow & when a third inmate is also found dead Turner is convinced something is going on. Turner befriends & enlists the help of Blackgate psychiatrist Dr. Ashley Carter (Jenny McShane) who is sure that illegal drugs are to blame but as Turner investigates the three apparent suicides the one connecting factor is a recently reopened cell block that has been bricked up for fifty years after the previous warden was murdered there, Turner discovers the dark past of the cell block has a very real present day effect as vengeful spirits seek revenge...Co-written, co-produced & directed by William Butler this feels like a fairly standard rip-off of The Ring (2002) as the vengeful spirit of a young girl is awakened & seeks some sort of revenge or some wrong that needs righting, as such I suppose it's OK but nothing memorable & there are better examples out there. The plot is fairly standard stuff but the prison setting is quite cool & one underused in the horror genre, the actual revelations at the end are forgettable & don't seem to have much thought put into them. There are also various plot ideas that go nowhere, Tom Sizemore's character in particular is just totally forgotten about, the prison riot is never resolved & there's no real reason given as to why the ghost makes people commit suicide rather than just kill them. The character's are alright & they are fleshed out a little (although it's never made clear why Turner & Miller dislike each other so much), at 80 odd minutes in length it's not too long & while it's not the most incident packed film ever there's just about enough going on to sustain ones attention.Text at the beginning of Furnace claims it was 'Inspired by Actual Eevnts' which I found hard to believe. There seems to be comic book references aplenty here, the two main characters called Frank Miller & Michael Turner are both real life comic book artist's & Blackgate Prison is the name of the prison used in the DC comic books including Batman. Although quite well made it's not that scary & the ghost scenes are a bit dull, the usual slightly pale looking girl who moves in strange ways as well as a burned man who are typical ghost fair. There's very little gore, there's a bit of blood, a couple of severed fingers & nothing else.The IMDb reckons Furnace had a budget of about $3,000,000 which sounds like a lot of money to me, the production values are good but bland. Filmed in the old Tennesse State Prison apparently which explains why there's only about ten inmates. The acting is alright, rapper Ja Rule has a cameo while Tom Sizemore probably filmed his footage in a couple of days.Furnace is an OK time waster, it's the sort of Asian ghost story that has been done to death & the sort of story you can't do much with & Furnace doesn't even try. I've seen worse but I've seen better too.

carolyn-carter50 My boyfriend and I rented this yesterday. I loved it! Him not as much as me but overall the film was very scary and dark. The little girl in the film who had been burned badly was really hard to look at though the make up was so painfully created and realistic! I don't know many of the actors but over was scared to death! I highly recommend. The story stakes place in a dilapidated old prison where the ghost of a murdered young girl wanders the hall in search of her killer. Its not until the ending that you realize that her killer is the last person you expected. It's a pretty twisted premise so I don't recommend it for the kiddies!

atomic_age57 I can't understand why this is considered "unrated". There was no significant gore, no graphic nudity, no torture....nothing but the typical "R" rated schlock that continues to be churned out by amateur horror filmmakers. Other than about five seconds of the usual boring fake sex footage with the two main characters, there is nothing even really "R" rated in this film. In fact it is a very slow-moving, poorly acted, poorly scripted, tangled mess. The plot is very thin and predictable, the camera work terrible, and it's not the least bit scary. The prison setting (especially the closed-off section) does provide a bit of eerieness, but is otherwise ruined by the above-mentioned flaws. Just another unforgettable movie to throw on the scrap-heap of bad low-budget horror films. 2 stars