Asylum (1972)
Directed by Roy Ward Baker

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...

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...