Asylum

Release Year : 1972

AKA : House of Crazies

Directed By : Roy Ward Baker

Written By : Robert Bloch

Starring : Peter Cushing, Hebert Lom, Robert Powell, Britt Ekland, Charlotte Rampling

Related Links : IMDB, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com

 

A series of short stories of the supernatural woven told by the inmates of a mental asylum, and woven together by Robert Powell as the young doctor applying for a job there and given the guided tour.

The style and presentation of the shorts are going to be familiar to any of you who have watched series like Hammer Horror or Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense. None of the shorts in themselves are particularly noteworthy, but none of them are real stinkers either. I think the best was wisely chosen as the opening story, but as we got further in the stories grew slightly weaker.

Powells presence as the aspiring doctor did a lot to help the stories gel together into a single movie, and there are enough shenanigans going on in the asylum itself to make that a part of the story rather than just a mere backdrop. Perhaps it hasn't aged well in this time where we have seen all the tricks and twists film makers can throw at us, but many of the twists seemed painfully obvious. You could see them a mile away.

Effects are somewhat lacking, the stories choosing to concentrate much more on supernatural/ psychological themes such as voodoo and madness. When effects are called for, they are at best adequate, but certainly nothing special. Still, they do have a quaint old english charm about them. Psychological themes are handled somewhat clumsily, perhaps to be expected in a movie from that era.

It's just one of those films that there is little to say about either good or bad really. In itself it isn't bad, but the Hammer shorts to which it bears a heavy similarity were done better. None of the stories really captivate or enthrall, they are just pretty much average tales of madness and supernatural. If you get a chance it is worth checking out, but don't go out of your way for it.