A Cure for Wellness Dvd

A Cure for Wellness is a 2016 psychological horror film directed by Gore Verbinski and written by Justin Haythe, based on a story co-written by Haythe and Verbinski, who were both inspired by Thomas Mann’s 1924 novel The Magic Mountain. Starring Dane DeHaan, Jason Isaacs and Mia Goth, the plot follows a young executive who is sent to retrieve a colleague from a mysterious rehabilitation center in the Swiss Alps.

An international co-production based in the United States, Germany, and Luxembourg, the film was shot on location at various German locations, including Hohenzollern Castle in Baden-Württemberg.

The film was released on February 17, 2017 by 20th Century Fox. The film received mixed reviews and grossed $26 million against its $40 million production budget.

Plot

Lockhart, an executive at a financial services firm in New York City, is sent by the board of directors to retrieve CEO Roland Pembroke, who had abruptly decided to stay at a “wellness center” in the Swiss Alps. At the spa, Lockhart is met with resistance by the staff and Dr. Heinreich Volmer in attempting to speak with Pembroke.

Lockhart leaves, but is involved in a car accident and awakens at the center – supposedly three days later – with his leg in a plaster cast. In spite of the horrendous accident, both he and the driver suffer only minor injuries. Lockhart meets a mysterious young girl named Hannah who, among others, doses herself with a mysterious fluid from small, cobalt-colored bottles.

Patient Victoria Watkins and residents of the nearby town regale a fascinated Lockhart with the history of the spa. It was built on the ruins of a castle owned 200 years ago by a baron, who desired an heir of pure blood and married his sister. Learning she was infertile, he performed hellish experiments on the peasants to find a cure. He succeeded, but after finding the carelessly buried bodies of his victims, the peasants stormed the castle and set it on fire. They captured the baron’s pregnant sister and the baby was cut from her womb before she was burned. The baby was thrown into the local aquifer, but somehow survived.

Lockhart attempts to escape the center but finds no one is allowed to leave. After gifting Hannah a ballerina figurine, Lockhart bikes into town with her help, leaving her in a bar and seeking out a translator for Pembroke’s German medical dossier. He learns that the people of the spa suffer from dehydration despite the water they imbibe from the aquifer. Hannah, kept at the spa her entire life, explores the bar and attracts the locals’ attention. Lockhart returns and gets into a fight with a man who was dancing with Hannah. He is rescued by Dr. Volmer, by whom the locals are curiously cowed.

Lockhart discovers the transfusion wing of the spa is a front for macabre medical experiments, and that the water from the local aquifer possesses unique properties – toxic to humans, but with life-restoring properties for the eels living in the water. The baron had devised a process to filter the water through the bodies of humans and distill it into a life-giving essence; Volmer uses the patients as filters for this process.

This “cure” is ingested by Hannah, Volmer, and his staff to gain vastly lengthened lifespans. Lockhart realizes that his leg is not broken and he is being kept prisoner. Volmer subjects Lockhart to nightmarish treatments, warping his mind until he believes he is insane. Hannah perceives this change and gives Lockhart back the ballerina figurine, breaking him out of his delirium.

Hannah has her first menstruation, and Volmer marries her. During the reception, he leads her to a secret room in the ruins of the castle and begins to sexually assault her. Lockhart confronts Volmer and realizes Volmer is the baron and Hannah is his daughter, the baby who was thrown into the well; both have been aging very slowly due to the “cure”.

In the ensuing fight, Volmer’s face is revealed to be a mask hiding his hideous burns. Lockhart sets Volmer and the castle on fire, but is overpowered by Volmer. Hannah saves Lockhart by killing her father, who falls into the aquifer and is eaten by the eels. Lockhart and Hannah escape on her bicycle as fire engulfs the center, and crash into a car carrying Lockhart’s employers, having come to retrieve him and Pembroke. Lockhart tells his employers that Pembroke died, and is ordered into the car. Unable to abandon Hannah, he rides away with her, smiling as they finally escape the asylum.

Cast

Dane DeHaan as Lockhart
Douglas Hamilton as 9-year-old Lockhart
Jason Isaacs as Dr. Heinreich Volmer/Baron von Reichmerl
Mia Goth as Hannah von Reichmerl
Harry Groener as Roland Pembroke
Celia Imrie as Victoria Watkins
Adrian Schiller as Deputy Director
Ivo Nandi as Enrico
Ashok Mandanna as Ron Nair
Tomas Norström as Frank Hill
David Bishins as Hank Green
Carl Lumbly as Wilson
Lisa Banes as Hollis
Godehard Giese as Prim Technician
Magnus Krepper as Pieter The Vet
Tom Flynn as Humphrey
Eric Todd as Josh
Jason Babinsky as Carl
Johannes Krisch as Caretaker
Rebecca Street as Lockhart’s Mother
Bert Tischendorf as Lockhart’s Father
Michael Mendl as the Barkeeper