Asylum (3 Stars)

This is a film I'd never heard of until a few days ago, when I saw it in the bargain bin at DM (Drogerie Müller) in Stuttgart. Four Euros for a Blu-ray with Peter Cushing and Britt Ekland's names on the cover was a tempting price. Stuttgart's biggest stores for films on Blu-ray used to be Saturn and Media Markt, but now Media Markt has closed and Saturn has down-sized. Saturn used to have a whole floor for music and films, but now there's just a small area for films in the corner of the lower floor. As far as I can tell, Saturn no longer sells 4K discs at all. Now DM is the only store left. It's true, I buy most of my films from Amazon, but I enjoy the atmosphere of walking through a store and flipping through the Blu-rays. Occasionally there's a special offer at DM which I can't refuse. For instance, "Asylum" would have cost be 12 Euros from Amazon, three times as much.

Now that the White Nights Festival is over I had time to watch it. It's an Amicus film made in 1972. In the 1960's and 1970's Amicus was considered the main contender to Hammer, particularly Hammer Horror. As far as the style goes, it's difficult to tell Amicus and Hammer Horror apart, because they had the same actors and directors. It's a shame that Amicus didn't last. Maybe the time was wrong for this type of film. Hammer also ceased operations in the 1970's.

I admit to feeling sentimental about Peter Cushing. He was an incredible actor, even though he spent most of his career acting in low budget films. (Yes, the Hammer Horror films were low budget films, but they were still extremely good). Ironically, most people know him for his appearance in "Star Wars", which was an untypical film for him. I was disappointed that he only appears briefly in "Asylum".

The film is about a young psychiatrist, Dr. Martin, applying for a job at Dunsmoor mental asylum. Today the word asylum is considered a slur, so there are more politically correct ways to describe it, such as a psychiatric hospital. But whatever it's called, it's still a place where the incurably ill are locked up for the rest of their lives. He's told that the previous head of the asylum, Dr. Starr, has had a mental break down. He's invented a new personality for himself and now lives as one of the patients. Dr. Martin is told that he'll be hired if he can recognise which one of the patients is Dr. Starr.

Dr. Martin speaks to four patients. The following film has the form of an anthology, even though the stories are original. Each of the patients explains why he's in hospital, and the stories of the first three patients involve lengthy flashbacks. The stories are told from the viewpoint of the patients, not necessarily what really happened. There are supernatural occurrences, which Dr. Martin dismisses as paranoid schizophrenia.

For instance, one of the patients sees a woman called Lucy who isn't really there. I wish I could see a woman as sexy as Britt Ekland in my bedroom.

But then again, Lucy makes the patient kill her brother. Why does paranoid schizophrenia always have to be about killing? Couldn't I just have an affair with an imaginary woman?

I've given the film a low rating because I don't like the anthology format. There are four self-contained short stories. I prefer full length films. And I want to see more than 20 minutes of Peter Cushing.

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