Film Review
If there was one area where the small British film company Amicus
succeeded and was able to hold its own against its nearest rival,
Hammer Films, it was assuredly that of the anthology horror film.
The success of
Dr. Terror's House of Horrors
(1964) led Amicus to focus much of its attention on the portmanteau
chiller, a genre that had been introduced into British cinema twenty
years earlier with
Dead of Night (1945). The
company's first foray into the genre was followed by
Torture Garden (1967),
The House That Dripped Blood (1970)
and
Tales from the Crypt
(1972), and the formula of a series of short horror films, loosely
linked together, proved to be hugely popular with British
audiences.
Asylum
qualifies as one such film, but it differs in that the segments that
make up the film are more closely related and more effectively melded
together, the result being a strange hybrid of the anthology film and a
more traditional horror feature.
Asylum boasts a cast of
exceptional pedigree (where else could you hope to find Peter Cushing,
Britt Ekland, Richard Todd, Charlotte Rampling, Herbert Lom and Robert
Powell in the same film?) and is imaginatively written by Robert Bloch,
the author of the novel
Psycho
which was made famous by Hitchcock. This was the last of five
films which Block scripted for Amicus, often adapting stories he had
already published. The film was directed, with great flair, by
horror stalwart Roy Ward Baker, who had previously lent his services to
Hammer on
Quatermass and the Pit (1967),
The Vampire Lovers (1970) and
Scars of Dracula (1970), and
who would helm another three memorable films for Amicus:
The Vault of Horror (1973),
And Now the Screaming Starts!
(1973) and
The Monster Club
(1980).
In common with many of Amicus's horror offerings, certainly the better
ones,
Asylum combines some
totally frightening horror concepts with an irresistible streak of dark
humour. Many of the ideas in
Asylum
are utterly bonkers: a killer who ends up being murdered by his
victim's dismembered body parts (neatly wrapped up in brown paper); a
tailor's dummy brought to life by a mysterious luminescent jacket; a
six inch mannequin which, having acquired the soul of its creator,
comes to life and goes on a killing spree. The genius of the film
is that, as insanely fanciful as these ideas are, they are handled with
deadly seriousness and we find it remarkably easy to suspend our
disbelief whilst watching the film (particularly as the effects are so
incredibly well-realised). Some totally convincing acting
(Cushing, Lom and Rampling are especially good) and suitably
atmospheric lighting and camerawork make this one of Amicus's strongest
entries in the horror genre, and certainly one of their weirdest.
It almost makes what Hammer were doing at the time appear completely
banal...
© James Travers 2013
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Roy Ward Baker film:
-- And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973)
Film Synopsis
Dr Martin arrives at a remote asylum which houses a number of
dangerously insane inmates, to attend a job interview conducted by Dr
Rutherford. The latter is confined to a wheelchair, after having
been attacked by the former director of the asylum, Dr Starr.
Martin is surprised to learn that Starr is now one of the patients in
the asylum. Dr Rutherford tells Martin that he will consider
employing him if he can correctly identify which of the inmates is Dr
Starr, having spoken to each one of them in turn. The first
patient, Bonnie, tells Martin that she was wrongly arrested for
murdering her lover, Walter. Nobody believes her story, that
Walter was attacked and killed by the dismembered body parts of his
wife, after he murdered her with an axe. Patient number two is
Bruno, an old tailor who claims to have created a suit that can bring
the dead back to life. According to Bruno, the demonic suit
animated his full-size mannequin, which immediately attacked and killed
his wife. The third patient is Barbara, who insists that her
brother was stabbed to death not by herself, but by her well-meaning
friend Lucy. Martin soon realises that Lucy and Barbara are one
in the same woman. Finally, Martin is confronted with Dr Byron,
one of Rutherford's former associates, who has become maniacally
obsessed with the idea of transferring his soul into what looks like a
child's toy robot, but with a perfect replica of his own head.
Outraged by what he has seen, Martin tells Rutherford that he has no
intention of working for him, just as Byron succeeds in bringing his
tiny mannequin to life and sends it off to kill his old enemy. Dr
Martin then discovers the true identity of Dr Starr, but at the cost of
his own life...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.