Asylum (DVD)

Asylum (DVD)
The 1972 horror anthology film comes to disk.
By:stacilayne
Updated: 07-26-2006

Amicus Films, sort of a poor man's Hammer (and Hammer was a poor man's Universal!), specialized in horror anthology films and had their heyday in the late 60s and early 70s. Asylum is a great example of what they could do with seemingly unrelated tales of terror, held together by an absorbing interstitial story. In addition to the Robert Bloch-scripted Asylum, they also did the 1972 Tales from the Crypt and Torture Garden (both also written by Bloch)

 

In Asylum, Robert Powell plays a young psychiatrist who's vying for a job on staff at a lonely mental asylum called Dunsmoor. As part of his interview, he is put to an unusual test: To figure out which of incurably insane inmates was once the medical director of the facility, Dr. Starr.

 

One by one, the applicant visits the patients' rooms and listens to their stories, which are imparted via flashback.

 

Frozen Fear

The hot-blooded beauty in the cold freezer is the wife of a philandering husband who's cut her to bits and wrapped her in butcher's paper before locking her in the cooler. Very EC Comics'esque, this is a great little tale of sweet revenge. They are some slightly hokey, yet surprisingly haunting and memorable, scenes of the dismembered body parts writhing across the floor in their single-minded pursuit of the spouse and mistress who did her wrong.

 

The Weird Tailor

Peter Cushing stars in this slow but involving tale of a destitute tailor who, desperate for money, takes the business of a strange man with an even more unusual request: To make a suit cut from a specific cloth and to work only between certain hours when the planets are in a distinct alignment. It takes awhile for the story to pay off, but it's got a good zinger-style ending.

 

Lucy Came To Stay

Charlotte Rampling and Britt Ekland star in this vignette, which is certainly the most compelling and effective of the lot. Recovering from a nervous breakdown, Barbara returns to the family estate where she will reside with her brother George, and a live-in nurse. Barbara is desperately lonely at first, but when an old friend of hers shows up out of the blue, she feels like her old self again.

 

Manikins of Horror

Dr. Byron is a former surgeon who has become obsessed with his hobby of creating tiny manikins which he says contain real human organs. Byron sincerely believes that he can breathe his own essence into the dolls and bring them to life to do his evil bidding and theyby get revenge on those who have confined him to Dunsmoor.

 

Manikins of Horror flows into the connecting story, and through its conclusion, the real Dr. Starr is unmasked with a flourish of wit and grue that is characteristic of the great Robert Bloch.

 

Although the movie is probably slow by today's standards, it holds up admirable and kudos should go to director Roy Ward Baker for building the suspense and horror with each story.

 

= = =

Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson

Latest User Comments: