| Complete credited cast: | |||
| Robert Stephens | ... | Sir Hugo Cunningham | |
| Robert Powell | ... | Giles Cunningham | |
| Jane Lapotaire | ... | Christina Cunningham | |
| Alex Scott | ... | Sir Edward Barrett | |
| Ralph Arliss | ... | Clive Cunningham | |
| Fiona Walker | ... | Anna Wheatley | |
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Terry Scully | ... | Pauper |
| John Lawrence | ... | Mason | |
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David Grey | ... | Vicar |
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Tony Caunter | ... | Warden |
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Paul Bacon | ... | 1st Member |
Hugo is a brilliant mid-Victorian scientist, loved and respected by his family and friends, admired by his colleagues. But he is a man quickly becoming obsessed with a curious and frightening question... what is the mysterious apparition found in the photographs of his dying subjects? Hugo brings to a family boating party his newest invention-a motion picture camera. The party quickly turns into a disaster as he captures on film the tragic drowning of his wife and son. When the film is replayed later, the same ghostlike presence appears. It flies towards his son, and vanishes inside his dying body. Has Hugo discovered The Asphyx, the spirit of the dead described in Greek mythology? A spirit which lives in constant agony, not finding rest until it takes possession of a human body? Could the spirit, if captured, become the key to immortality? Hugo is compelled to find the answers. It is a ghoulish search, with eternally haunting results. Written by James C. Allen <spgcs@bellsouth.net>
I was able to view this film in Pattonville Germany, in the theater on post. I was 13 or 14 years old at the time. It was a matinée and cost a whole thirty-five cents to see.
This movie is the standard I use to base any and all horror films on, it still gives me the shivers.
It has only been some 30 years ago but I remember the line of the witness when the movie opened when the bus?/truck screeches over the old man, MY GOD HE'S STILL ALIVE the guy says as the guinea pig runs across the screen to the left.
My memory of the asphyx being caught in the light, and the noise of the thing screeching, the man they were hanging was moving around and twitching on the end of the rope, still just freaks me out.