Asylum (1972/I)

Director:

Roy Ward Baker

Writer:

Robert Bloch (stories)

Release Date:

17 November 1972 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

The hot-blooded beauty in the cold freezer.

Plot:

A young psychiatrist interviews four inmates in a mental asylum to satisfy a requirement for employment...

Plot Keywords:

Robot | Tailor | Animate Doll | Anthology | Axe

Awards:

2 wins

Cast

Peter Cushing	...	Smith
Britt Ekland	...	Lucy
Herbert Lom	...	Byron
Patrick Magee	...	Dr. Rutherford
Barry Morse	...	Bruno
Barbara Parkins	...	Bonnie
Robert Powell	...	Dr. Martin
Charlotte Rampling	...	Barbara
Sylvia Syms	...	Ruth
Richard Todd	...	Walter
James Villiers	...	George
Geoffrey Bayldon	...	Max Reynolds
Ann Firbank	...	Anna
Megs Jenkins	...	Miss Higgins
John Franklyn-Robbins	...	Stebbins

Also Known As:

House of Crazies

Runtime:

88 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Iceland:16 | France:-16 | UK:15 | Australia:M | Finland:(Banned) (1973) | Sweden:15 | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

New Lodge, Winkfield, Berkshire, England, UK

Company:

Amicus Productions

Trivia:

Arthur Grant was booked as director of photography but three weeks before shooting discovered he was terminally Ill and had to reluctantly drop out. Denys N. Coop stepped in at short notice.

Goofs:

Continuity: When the landlord of the tailor holds up his rent book, it alternates hands between shots.

Quotes:

[explaining why he's in a wheelchair]
Dr. Rutherford: Never turn your back on a patient.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Stephen King's World of Horror (1986) (TV)

Soundtrack:

A Night on the Bald Mountain

Adapting Robert Bloch

4 short story adaptations of Robert Bloch stories. I will look at them in order they appear...

"Frozen Fear": short story of a man who attempts to cut himself off from a loveless marriage in order to take up with his mistress by a rather inventive means of murder only some things don't seem to want to stay dead. Short, but effective and creepy with a terrific ending even if we are required to suspend disbelief quite a bit in a few scenes.

"The Weird Tailor": a tailor desperate for money agrees to, at the request of an unusual elderly customer (played by Peter Cushing), to make a special suit out of a very strange type of fabric. Only when he delivers it, he discovers the elderly customer actually has no money to pay and even more shocking is the true purpose of this bizarre suit. This is the best of these tales. However, to be honest, I much prefer the adaptation from the "Thriller" series.

"Lucy Comes To Stay": a tale of psychosis as Lucy (Charlotte Rampling) returns home from the mental hospital, presumed cured, only it seems the naughty girlfriend who landed Lucy in trouble to begin has started to visit her in secret as well. Actually this is not at all bad, it just runs a little too long for my liking. Still there's some quality about Charlotte Rampling I find irresistible.

"Mannikens of Horror": the framing story for the others in the series as a new doctor visits a mental hospital and discovers that the Doctor who called him there is now a patient in the ward. He's told he can have the job if he can identify which patient upstairs is that Doctor. Finally he comes to believe the individual is a strange fellow who makes small lifelike figures, into which he plans to place his conscience and use as his means of escape. A number of startling twists here, fine stars like Patrick Magee and Herbert Lom, make this both entirely unpredictable and honestly quite good.