My post for Day 2 of October was originally going to be 1973 Spanish movie Crypt of the Living Dead. I only got eight minutes into said film though before I stopped watching. Eight minutes in, and nothing was happening! Reviews on IMDb confirmed my suspicion that the rest of the movie was just as boring. An opposite example to Crypt is 1972 Amicus anthology horror film Asylum. Only five minutes into this film, I was hooked! While what had happened by that point was just talking, it was interesting, and not soul-crushingly boring (oh hai, Ulli Lommel, I'll get to you later in the month...)
Asylum opens with Dr. Martin (Robert Powell) arriving at an asylum 'for the incurably insane' because of job interview. He meets with Dr. Rutherford (Patrick Magee), who tells Martin of Dr. Starr, a doctor at the asylum who went mad, and is now a patient, suffering from split-personality disorder. Ruherford wants Martin to prove his worth as a psychiatrist and tells him to go and interview four patients upstairs, and determine which one of them is Dr. Starr.
The first patient he interviews in named Bonnie...
Frozen Fear
Bonnie (Barbara Perkins) is the lover of Walter (Richard Todd), an unhappily married man who wants to be rid of his dominating wife Ruth (Sylvia Syms). Since Ruth (who has interest in voodoo magic) doesn't want to get a divorce, Walter leads her down into the basement to give her a present. The present is a freezer, which Ruth gushes about just before Walter rams an axe in her head (and spouts of a one-liner).
Walter dismembers his wife's corpse (offscreen, so there's nothing for gorehounds) and wraps all the body parts in bags. Later, he calls Bonnie over, and they plan to get away somewhere. After the phone call ends, Walter sees the bag with Ruth's head roll near him, then disappear. He goes into the basement to investigate and is strangled to death by his wife's disembodied arm.
A little later, Bonnie arrives at the house, unaware of the supernatural danger...
Next up for Doc Martin to talk with is a man named Bruno (Barry Morse)...
The Weird Tailor
Bruno (who talks like a cross between El Brendel and Inspctor Clouseau) was a struggling tailor. His story starts off with him being hounded for rent by his landlord. He makes a deal-he can get the rent owed if given until the next week to pay it. While distraught at first, his hopes are risen when a customer comes in. The customer, Mr. Smith (Peter Cushing) wants Bruno to make a suit for him (intended for Smith's son), made from a material Smith has brought with him. Smith also tells Bruno to only work on the suit between midnight and dawn.
Bruno spends the next few nights making the suit (which acts weird-he pricks himself at one point, and the blood drops on the suit fade away), and when he finishes it, as per instructions, he immediately heads for Smith's house. When there, Smith tells Bruno of stuff, namely an old tome he has, which cost him his entire fortune. Wanting to be paid, Bruno forces himself into another room, where he finds a body in a coffin.
Smith explains that the body was of his son, and the suit is magical and will bring him back to life. Bruno demands to be paid, and in a scuffle, Smith is shot.
Taking the suit and the book with him, Bruno goes back home and tells his wife Anna (Anne Firbank) to burn the suit. While he looks through the book, he finds that his wife has put the resurrection suit on a mannequin...
Next, Martin interviews Barbara (Charlotte Rampling)...
Lucy Comes to Stay
Lucy Comes to Stay is about Barbara, who has just been released from an asylum, and is being taken home by her brother George (James Villiers). While home, she is forced to go to bed (much to her outrage, as it's still daytime).
Later in the day, when George and the live-in nurse (Meg Jenkins) are away from the house, Barbara's friend Lucy (Britt Ekland) arrives. Lucy, who Geoge sees as a bad influence on Barbara, is paranoid about Barbara's safety, and wants her to run away. Trouble is, Lucy may not be real...
Next comes the final story...
Mannikins of Horror
The last patient for Dr. Martin to interview is Dr. Byron (Herbert Lom), a former doctor who was intitutionalized due to his belief that someone's thoughts can be transferred into a specially made doll, making it come to life.
Thoroughly pissed of at the guessing game, and Dr. Rutherford's psychiatric methods, Martin goes to complain. Meanwhile, Byron successfully brings a little robo-doll version of himself to life, and he sends it to get revenge on Dr. Rutherford for putting him in the asylum...
Asylum is a fun horror film, that relies more on plot than anything else. Rather than have loads of effects or gore, Asylum lets the characters and dialogue do most of the talking (figuratively, I mean). Though that doesn't mean the movie is without effects, because it has them, namely the Lom-robot, which is entertaining to no end!
The worst story in my opinion is definitely Lucy Comes to Stay. It's not bad, and the acting is all fine, but the story has no meat on its bones. It's all talk and little plot. Unfortunately the murderous split personality twist is so obvious that I didn't even realize it was meant to be a surprise. I thought it was a constant visible element through the whole story! I guess it wasn't a plot point as overly used and cliched as it is now.
As for Mannikins of Horror, rather than being a separate story, like the previous three, it's attached to the framing story.
The film's biggest problem is the lack of endings for nearly all the stories! Frozen Fear doesn't have an ending, neither does The Weird Tailor, and Lucy Comes to Stay doesn't either! The conclusion To Mannikins of Horror, and the end of the framing story are both handled well though. Poor main characters in Amicus anthology movies, things never turn out well for them...
So, to conclude, I recommend this movie, if for nothing else, for the Lom-robo-doll!...
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