University of Virginia Library

CINEMA

No Shock, No Horror, But Insane

By DAVE NOZIGLIA

Asylum is a combination
of four of Robert Bloch's short
stories, tied together by a
flimsy and damaging narrative
bridge.

In the main narrative, a new
doctor in an insane asylum is
old that he can have a job if
he can interview each of the
inmates and guess which one is
the ex-director of the
institution who went insane
and attacked Dr. Rutherford
(Patrick Magee). The young,
idealistic (of course) doctor
talks to four patients, which
isn't much for a whole
institution, and each tells him a
story.

Right away you have to stop
and say that this is a mistake.

The stories that are told are
supposed to be horror and
shock stories, but since they
are told by people who are
quite obviously insane from
the very first shot, aside from
Dr. Rutherford's assurances,
we can really expect anything,
and we are not surprised in the
least when a dead body is
found or a manikin comes to
life. No surprise, no horror.

Another mistake made from
the first conception of this film
is the very question of the
patients' insanity. Just what do
the stories told have to do with
their insanity? Are they the
causes or the symptoms?
Always this is unclear.

But things really fall apart
when we come to the fourth
patient. Up to now, all of the
stories have been fantasies of
the patients, their stories from
the past. The last story,
however, is real, and is just as
impossible and fantastic as the
rest. But by the time we get to
it, we are to a certain extent
quite bored with the whole
thing, and this fourth attempt
to shock us just doesn't come
off.

And when the bridge-work
narrative comes to its frothy
conclusion, its just more slush
piled on.

You see, after all this we still
haven't listed the main fault of
Asylum. There is absolutely
no dramatic build. In the very
first shots, we are treated to all
kinds of stern faces, weird
lighting effects, and the worst
horror movie musical cliches
that I have ever heard.

And from this tremendous
height, the film goes absolutely
nowhere. The shot angles, the
movements, the lighting, the
music, the insanity, even the
themes of the stories just
repeat themselves again and
again. In every story, the
theme is the bringing to life of
the dead or inanimate, and
after the fifth go-round you're
glad to walk out.

Richard Todd, Sylvia Syms: "Drained Of Whatever Horror They Had."

Too much is not enough.
They tried to load this picture
with all the shock value they
could, but they had to do this
by making several stories fit in,
since none of them had enough
material for a whole movie by
itself. In doing so they drained
each of the stories of whatever
horror they had.

You hate to see people
wasting their time on such
things as this film.

(Now at the Barracks Road)