“The Attic Expeditions,” which began Friday and Saturday midnight screenings at the Sunset 5 in West Hollywood last weekend, is an amusing and ambitious supernatural horror picture in which a young man, Trevor (Andras Jones), kills his bride in self-defense when she attempts to make him the victim of a sacrificial ritual as doubtlessly outlined in an ancient text of black magic in her possession.

Confined to an institution for the criminally insane, Trevor faces fresh horrors from its head doctor (Jeffrey Combs), who seemingly believes that humanity could be cured of all mental ills if black magic and science were one. The doctor believes he’s on the brink of a breakthrough–but needs to get his hands on that text.

Much of the film takes place in a halfway house, a turn-of-the-last-century Georgian Revival mansion decorated in Mondrian-inspired color schemes and designs and in retro ’50s and ’60s decor. Here’s where Trevor ends up–and where he begins his expeditions into the mysteries of its attic.

Director Jeremy Kasten and writer Rogan Russell Marshall are consistently imaginative and audacious, willing to challenge as well as entertain their audience. Along with a capable cast, they’ve received a terrific assist from production designer Laura Roberts and her team and from cinematographers Michael Negrin and Greg Littlewood, whose use of light and sensitivity to Roberts’ vibrant color scheme create the film’s crucial sense of transporting the viewer into a nightmare world. “The Attic Expeditions” is a low-budget gem.

http://articles.latimes.com/print/2002/apr/25/news/wk-screen25