Yes, it still seems repulsive and disgusting and 'not nice', but full of great flashes of style. The acting is pretty awful (with the exception of Kenneth Cranham - see below) and the scenes of girls running along dank grey corridors look rather like out-takes from 'The Crystal Maze.' The effects (especially those back shots of the psychiatric clinic) look rather cheap by today's standards, but this only adds to the attraction and style of the whole extraordinary ensemble, rather like those obviously fake Walt Disney castles and fields in Laurence Olivier's 'Henry the Fifth.' Shocking images flicker by at an exponential rate, and I felt rather like someone at a tawdry Soho peepshow - disgusted and shamed and appalled, but unable to stop looking.
But not recommended... 1) for a cosy Saturday night watch with Grandma and the kids. 2) for psychiatric in-patients. 3) for easily offended Christians (this applies even more to the first film in the series). 4) those who've just eaten a big dinner.
More seriously, is this kind of fare proof of the death-wish of Western culture? I'm not saying that merely watching it can turn perfectly sane people into sadomasochistic murderers, but doesn't its popularity go to prove (as if we really needed it) that we're all rather 'sick'? My cable provider is running the whole series of 'Hell', and announces them as 'The films that defined a generation.' Isn't that 'definition' rather worrying? Both for the generation concerned, and the ones to follow? I know many 21st century teenagers will just laugh their heads off at this film - which rather proves my point.
P.S. Kenneth Cranham acts with incredible conviction (always rare to attain in horror films since the passing of the great Lugosi-Karloff and Cushing-Lee-Price days). Cranham looks the part of a slightly crazed doctor, and looks in genuine pain when he's floating in mid-air, like Kenneth Macmillan in David Lynch's 'Dune', with what looks like a giant condom growing from the top of his head.
But not recommended... 1) for a cosy Saturday night watch with Grandma and the kids. 2) for psychiatric in-patients. 3) for easily offended Christians (this applies even more to the first film in the series). 4) those who've just eaten a big dinner.
More seriously, is this kind of fare proof of the death-wish of Western culture? I'm not saying that merely watching it can turn perfectly sane people into sadomasochistic murderers, but doesn't its popularity go to prove (as if we really needed it) that we're all rather 'sick'? My cable provider is running the whole series of 'Hell', and announces them as 'The films that defined a generation.' Isn't that 'definition' rather worrying? Both for the generation concerned, and the ones to follow? I know many 21st century teenagers will just laugh their heads off at this film - which rather proves my point.
P.S. Kenneth Cranham acts with incredible conviction (always rare to attain in horror films since the passing of the great Lugosi-Karloff and Cushing-Lee-Price days). Cranham looks the part of a slightly crazed doctor, and looks in genuine pain when he's floating in mid-air, like Kenneth Macmillan in David Lynch's 'Dune', with what looks like a giant condom growing from the top of his head.