This film is from Amicus Productions, the same people that made another film with a similar structure and style (THE VAULT OF HORROR, 1973). In VAULT, the stories are all told by people about their own deaths. There is a very strange story that connects the four stories that make up ASYLUM. A young doctor comes to a mental institution because he wants a job. The head of the hospital makes the doctor a bet. If he can interview four patients and determine which one is Dr. Starr, then he gets the job! Pretty strange. When I worked at such a facility many years ago, my job interview was nothing like that! The first story is told by a woman (Barbara Parkins). It involves an affair she is having with a married man. He decides to kill the wife, but serious complications ensue.
The second is about a tailor (Barry Morse)who is told he'd be given a huge sum to make a suit made of a special fabric the customer (Peter Cushing) brings with him. It turns out this suit is part of some macabre spell to revive the man's dead son.
The third stars Charlotte Rampling and is about her returning to the home she shares with her brother. Apparently she'd been in some sort of hospital and she has a nurse assigned to watch her. However, after being sent to bed with a sedative, the nurse gets a phone call saying her mother took a fall and is in the emergency room. So, assuming Rampling would take a long nap, she leaves. Immediately after, Rampling's friend (Britt Ekland) comes and says she is the one who phoned the nurse and that Rampling should stop taking "those pills" and "just leave everything up to me".
The fourth is about a man named Byron (Herbert Lom), who introduces himself as a physician. He is working on making little robot-like creatures that he swears will become living things--when he wills his consciousness into them.
Overall, I was very surprised by this film, as I had very low expectations. After all, VAULT OF HORROR was not a particularly good film. However, because of the freshness of the four stories and sick (but cool) way that the main plot was handled, I am very glad I tried this film. Satisfying from start to finish.
The second is about a tailor (Barry Morse)who is told he'd be given a huge sum to make a suit made of a special fabric the customer (Peter Cushing) brings with him. It turns out this suit is part of some macabre spell to revive the man's dead son.
The third stars Charlotte Rampling and is about her returning to the home she shares with her brother. Apparently she'd been in some sort of hospital and she has a nurse assigned to watch her. However, after being sent to bed with a sedative, the nurse gets a phone call saying her mother took a fall and is in the emergency room. So, assuming Rampling would take a long nap, she leaves. Immediately after, Rampling's friend (Britt Ekland) comes and says she is the one who phoned the nurse and that Rampling should stop taking "those pills" and "just leave everything up to me".
The fourth is about a man named Byron (Herbert Lom), who introduces himself as a physician. He is working on making little robot-like creatures that he swears will become living things--when he wills his consciousness into them.
Overall, I was very surprised by this film, as I had very low expectations. After all, VAULT OF HORROR was not a particularly good film. However, because of the freshness of the four stories and sick (but cool) way that the main plot was handled, I am very glad I tried this film. Satisfying from start to finish.