If you’ve ever thought, “Rehab seems intense, but what if it also had a discount Hellraiser villain and the editing of a student film made entirely on energy drinks?” then C.L.E.A.N. is here to answer a question absolutely nobody asked.
This 2020 Croatian horror-thriller from Vjekoslav Katusin tries to tackle addiction, trauma, experimental brain science, and demonic conspiracies. Unfortunately, it tackles them the way a drunk guy tackles a buffet: aggressively, with no plan, and dropping half of it on the floor.
The Premise: Rehab, But Make It Sketchy
The setup actually sounds decent on paper. Four patients, each with a different addiction—alcohol, drugs, sex, and “being in this movie,” presumably—check into a sanatorium run by Dr. Sutter (Costas Mandylor), a man whose entire vibe screams “unethical clinical trial.”
Sutter is testing something called the C.L.E.A.N. program, which stands for Cerebral Lateralization Enforcement and Neuroactivation. Already a red flag: any therapy with an acronym that long is either fake science or a tech startup pitch.
The idea is that this program “modifies behavioral patterns in the brain” to cure addiction. In practice, it seems to involve:
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Strapping people into machines
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Flashing lights at them
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Giving them visions
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And then, inevitably, trying to kill them
So basically: dial-up psychiatry mixed with murder.
Our main protagonist, Alice (Jenny Paris), shows up with the worst backstory of the group: she’s had visions since childhood and watched her mother get brutally murdered. This trauma apparently makes her the designated Final Girl and the only one remotely suspicious that something about this “clinic” is off.
To be fair, once you find out one of the characters is literally named Luzifer, subtlety has already left the building.
Characters: Now With 70% Less Character
The cast list suggests the film has people in it. You wouldn’t always know from watching.
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Dr. Sutter (Costas Mandylor)
He’s theoretically a brilliant doctor, but his treatment strategy is basically “what if I mashed neurology, torture, and motivational speaking into one unholy thing?” Mandylor does what he can, alternating between dead eyes and vague menace, like a dentist who’s secretly in a death cult. -
Mr. Wilkens (Tom Sizemore)
Sizemore shows up as some shadowy authority figure, shuffling around the place like a man who has done his scenes, hit his marks, and is already halfway to the paycheck. You get the sense he’s here to lend “name value,” then understandably refuses to overexert himself. -
Alice (Jenny Paris)
The closest thing the film has to a soul. Alice is traumatized, intuitive, and fully aware that everything is wrong, which already makes her smarter than the script deserves. Sadly, she’s stuck delivering lines that sound like they were Google-translated twice and then punched in the face. -
Noah, Joe, & Co.
The other patients exist mainly to:-
Suffer
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Scream
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Be test subjects
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Make you say, “Wait, who is this again?”
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Luzifer (Lou Cefair)
Yes, that’s how it’s spelled. He’s absolutely the kind of character where, the second you see his name in the credits, you know subtle horror is off the menu and we’re going full Hot Topic Theology. He’s tied into the “perfidious pact” Alice discovers, which sounds much cooler than the movie actually makes it.
Tone: Rehab Drama Meets Bargain-Bin Hell
C.L.E.A.N. wants to be many things:
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A psychological thriller about addiction
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A supernatural horror film
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A sci-fi morality tale about brainwashing
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A conspiracy story about secret pacts
Instead, it lands squarely in the zone of “that movie Netflix recommends when it has absolutely no idea who you are as a person.”
The horror is confused:
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Sometimes it’s about visions
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Sometimes it’s mad science
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Sometimes it’s religious evil
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Sometimes it’s just weird lighting and people screaming in slow motion
Nothing ever really coheres. It’s like the film itself is addicted—to subgenres.
The C.L.E.A.N. Program: Sponsored by Fake Science™
Let’s talk about this program for a second.
Cerebral Lateralization Enforcement and Neuroactivation sounds like something a film student wrote on a napkin after watching Inception and one TED Talk.
We never get a satisfying sense of:
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How it actually works
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What it’s really doing
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Why anyone approved this other than Satan’s HR department
There’s vague talk about “modifying behavior patterns,” but the results look less like therapy and more like:
“What if we traumatized addicts harder?”
Not exactly a cutting-edge model of care.
Plot: From “Something’s Wrong Here” to “Oh, Come On”
The movie follows a very predictable trajectory:
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Arrival at the sanatorium
– Everyone is sad, addicted, and full of backstory. -
Initially promising treatment
– Dr. Sutter explains the C.L.E.A.N. method with the confidence of a man who has definitely not been through peer review. -
Weird visions and deaths
– The program starts making patients freak out, see things, or just die horribly. -
Alice Senses a Vibe™
– She realizes something is terribly wrong (besides the scripting). -
The Perfidious Pact™ Reveal
– Turns out it’s not just bad science—it’s some sinister pact, presumably with Luzifer and whoever approved this plot summary. -
Survival Mode
– Things devolve into “who can make it out alive” chaos, with the usual running, screaming, and blaming the doctor.
There is a story in here about exploitation: addicts seeking help from people who weaponize their vulnerability. But the movie is too tangled up in its own pseudo-mystical nonsense to explore that with any depth.
Instead of saying something interesting about how desperate people are easily manipulated, we get:
“Trauma! Demons! Machines! Screaming!”
It’s like a thematic soup where somebody forgot to turn the stove on.
Visuals & Atmosphere: Almost, But Not Quite
To its credit, the movie does try to look like something. The sanatorium setting is creepy enough—isolated, clinical, off. There are some solid moments where the atmosphere almost works, like:
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Long sterile hallways
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Stark lighting
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Clinical rooms that make you think, “Yep, I’m going to die here.”
But every time the tone starts to land, something undercuts it:
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Clunky dialogue
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Random tonal shifts
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Overcooked “vision” sequences that feel more like music videos for bands you’ve never heard of
It’s the horror equivalent of mood lighting in a restaurant that still serves frozen microwave meals. You can dim the lights all you want; I still know what I’m eating.
Performances: Doing the Best with What They’ve Got
No one in this movie is phoning it in exactly—they’re just trapped in a script where half the emotional beats feel like they were translated from another language and not given a second pass.
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Jenny Paris as Alice is genuinely trying to give us a complex, traumatized woman slowly realizing she’s trapped in a nightmare.
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Costas Mandylor does dependable low-key menace.
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Tom Sizemore shows up, does his gravelly thing, and leaves before the building collapses.
There’s a better film hiding under these performances—a more focused psychological thriller where the horror is rooted in exploitation rather than, “Also, Lucifer is here and loves acronyms.”
Final Diagnosis: Needs More Than Detox
C.L.E.A.N. wants to examine addiction, trauma, evil, and control. Instead, it’s like being trapped in a rehab escape room designed by someone who only half-watched Saw and took all the wrong notes.
It’s:
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Overstuffed with ideas
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Underwritten in execution
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Occasionally atmospheric
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Frequently ridiculous
And somehow both too serious and not serious enough.
If you enjoy:
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Shouting “WHY ARE YOU TRUSTING THIS DOCTOR?!” at your screen
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Fake science with maximum syllables and minimum meaning
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Satanic shenanigans in clinical environments
…you might actually have some fun with this as a so-bad-it’s-kinda-enjoyable watch.
Everyone else? Consider this less a C.L.E.A.N. program and more a cinematic toxic spill. Proceed with caution—and maybe don’t sign any pacts, perfidious or otherwise.
