The Atticus institute was founded by Dr. Henry West (William Mapother) to study parapsychology and to test possible candidates with mental abilities. Things seem normal until they find Judith (Rya Kihlstedt) who tests very well. The group discovers that instead of just having abilities she may be possessed. The military gets involved.

The film is done as a mockumentary with numerous interviews spaced between the action. It was done fairly well and I expect this to be on the History or Discovery Channel someday following "They Saved Hilter's Brain." I was mildly entertained by the film, but not scared or excited. With half the film being interviews, it is hard to say anything bad about the acting. It had the feel of the hand held genre and might do well with fans of that kind of film. Would work as a Redbox rental.

Guide: No f-bombs that I recall. No sex or nudity.

I didn't know about this movie prior to coming across it by sheer random luck. I read the synopsis and it did seem adequate. So I sat down to watch "The Atticus Institute".

But I must admit that I lost interest fairly quickly into the movie. Why? Well, simply because the storyline failed to captivate, and the characters in the movie weren't particularly interesting or detailed.

And the whole documentary-style to the movie didn't really appeal to me either. I am sure that some will enjoy the style in which the movie is filmed and set up, but it just didn't sit well with me.

"The Atticus Institute" just never took off. It started out okay, but then it just thrummed into a monotone pace and never gained momentum.

As for the acting, well that was actually what worked in favor of the movie, but it was nowhere enough to lift up the movie or salvage the movie as it spiraled off course.

My interest quickly wandered to my phone while watching "The Atticus Institute", and it never fully managed to lure me back. This was a rather boring movie and one that will be very quickly forgotten. A dull movie with an equally dull storyline. Don't waste your time or money on this movie.

Trying to recreate a famous encounter, a filmmaker interviews the participants involved in a research facility designed to study paranormal powers when the government got involved in one case where they wanted to turn one's powers into a military weapon.

While this one was indeed quite enjoyable there's some rather prominent flaws on display. Among the biggest issues here is the actual method of filming this one which presents the film with several immediate problems. There's the main issue of this one cutting away from the story continuously in order to get the talking head interviews and their own personal accounts of what happened that doing so in this manner causes the film to be so start/stop in terms of its pace that it really can't generate much in terms of atmosphere or suspense when it has to cut away when something's interesting to come back to these. It' gives this a pretty disjointed feel when everything turns back into the interviews rather than letting the story play out as it normally would, which is another problem here. This one goes for brief inserts recreating what happened that are quite hard to make out the point of when they just spend the entire time going nowhere with the storyline as they don't lead up to anything except the next talking-head interview, and there's little to be gleaned from that type of structure. The other issue here is that it's highlighting how uneventful the first half of this one is where they go into the research institute's background and history with its' patients before getting her there as none of this is really all that involved in getting this one going along at an inviting pace with the main purpose of the film appearing so late into here since all of the lead-up time is taken on setting the stage here with not just the interviews but the footage shot documenting the very same thing we just heard them talk about. It lastly has the small problem of highlighting the fact that it spends the first half not knowing whether she's just gifted psychically or possessed, as if it can't make up it's mind what the actual cause is which makes for a slightly disappointing effort when it's not all that clear what's going on. Still, this one isn't all that bad as there's some good stuff involved here with the surprising feat of it not being all that boring at all, keeping this one moving along at a nice enough pace that there's not a whole lot really worth skipping over or just ignoring, blazing through here with a rather impressive pace that keeps this one going along rather nicely. That's due to the nice action at times here with some rather fun times showcasing not just her powers but also getting rather fun with the military intervention that comes along with all the different tortures they inflict on her and the powers they coax out of her which gradually leads into a rather fun time with what it's all leading to. Enhanced by all the off-stage accidents and testimony given earlier, it's all quite a bit of fun and leads to a great finish here that's quite chilling and enjoyable. These here make this good enough to matter, but it's still rather flawed.

Rated R: Violence and Language.