Released by Severin Films when they put out their horror anthology documentary Tales of the Uncanny, The Attic Expeditions was a revelation to me. I was knocked out by its Asylum-influenced story of Trevor Blackburn, a man who may or may not have lost his mind.

The problems begin when he and his girlfriend Faith purchase a home together and find a chest in the attic. Inside, they discover a book of black magic that gives them great power through a series of rituals. As they work on learning how to gain more power, a ritual that combines their consciousnesses leads to her death.

Now in an asylum, Dr. Ek (Jeffrey Combs) and Dr. Coffee (Ted Raimi) hope to use the book of black magic to cure all mental illness, but Trevor can barely remember his past and has no idea where it is. Dr. Ek then sends Trevor to be rehabilitated at The House of Love, a recovery facility seemingly in the command of Dr. Thalama (Wendy Robie, The People Under the Stairs) that is really Trevor’s old home. The goal is to make him find the book and use actors, their stories and fake murders to make him wake up and turn over the occult reference.

Dead people come back to life, drugs and surgery are used on our protagonist and all of these things make him go even deeper into fantasy until there are multiple versions of himself and Faith all working on finding the black book.

Originally intended to be the fourth film in the Witchcraft series, this film stands on its own, featuring really good performances — Seth Green is awesome in this — and the only downside is the alt rock soundtrack that was forced on the film by its producers. Sadly, this film — despite being picked up by Blockbuster — doesn’t get the kind of publicity other lesser horror anthologies get.

This movie is made even better by the fact that Alice Cooper shows up.

You can get this from Severin and watch this on Tubi.