Well here's a Charming fun little film.
Asylum (1972) is the story of a young psychiatric doctor coming to an interview for an Asylum for the incurable insane.
He's greeted by a wheelchair-bound Authoritarian who informs him of his currant predicament and to reinstate one of the key rules when dealing with the patient.
''Never turn your back on them''
For the head doctor of this Asylum was attacked by one of his patients and is now suffering the consequences of limited Mobility.
Because of this little outcome they've had to hire in new help.
But it seems the good doctor isn't just willing to let the new Apprentice start up immediately.
Instead he offers him a most unusual test.
He needs to enter into the Restricted Section and have an interview with each of the patients.
After which he has to return to the authoritarian doctor and inform him of which one was formerly the head of the Asylum.
And only if he can succeed in this test will he be eligible to work within the establishment.
It's from here that we get the basis for our film.
A kind of anthology of several different stories of various people who go through their own traumatic events.
Some with Supernatural outcomes, some without.
Each one's individual story seems to resemble your typical horror movie but with the added elements that the entire thing could be fabricated.
The question becomes less about the sanity of the patients and more about the legitimacy of their claims.
For first it seems the supernatural elements are completely and utterly devoid of all legitimacy; That is until around the end of the film, when it turns out that certain elements may not be as ludicrous as they first seemed.
The first story involves a woman who is having an affair with a married man. Send married man plans to murder his wife by slicing her into pieces and then stuffing her body into a newly purchased freezer; Which he had used to lower her down in the first place.
But there's a snag in the plan.
For his wife had been practising some form of Vaudoux magic and because of this her organs where able to reanimate and given the ability to murder her own husband.
Afterwards the Vaudoux possessed woman went on to try and kill the mistress (after she arrived at their home to pick the man up).
This random woman was able to defend yourself with an axe and was even able to chop away at the bodies.
That is until the end of the story when it's revealed that there may have never been a body to begin with and that this woman might have just gone insane and murdered the man who she was cheating with.
She may have cut up her own face thinking that she was attacking some sort of reanimated corpse woman.
It's the story with the most suspenseful build up and silliest execution.
At first it simply shows body parts gradually moving across the floor creating the ere element of an undead unnatural fear and confusion. But then has the same body parts continue to move more and more it slides completely over into slapstick territory.
The Second Story (my personal favourite of a lot) involves a poor Tailour who's about to be evicted from his business by his landlord.
He has only a week to acquire the funds. When luck would have it that a man enters his shop wishing for a custom-made suit for his son.
The man doesn't just ask for a suit but a suit made of a fine strange glowing material.
A mystical fabric that can only be worked on in the latest hours of the night as given by a strange booklet of instructions.
The Tailour desperate and disinterested in the man's instruction decides to take up the job noting that he'll get 200 lb for a single job.
Only at the end of the week when he's delivering the suit that he discovers the true intentions. This mysterious man (who is played by Peter Cushing) plans to use the mystifying suit to reanimate his dead son and bring them back from the Land of the Dead.
This horrifies the Tailour and he tries to get away for the man refusing to give him a suit (In reality that's only because the man couldn't actually afford to pay him for it. As he reveals that he is destitute from buying a mysterious necromancy book.)
There's a conflict involving a loaded gun and the mysterious man is killed.
Now the Tailour returns to his shop desperate to destroy the suit, the book and just a run away and hope to God that he can forget about this most traumatising of experiences.
He tells his wife to take the suit and burn it. But she decides to stick it on a mannequin just to show it off.
And it seems this mystifying fabric doesn't just alter the dead but can animate non-living material into its own unique being.
Thereby bringing the mannequin to life who then goes on to strangle the tailor before the story ends.
The third story involves a crazy lady suffering with a dual personality disorder.
She's brought home from a presumably a different mental Asylum to stay with her brother and a nurse to be taken care of her.
But she's able to trick the nurse into leaving for a time and then kills her brother with a pair of scissors. Blaming the entire event of the fictitious woman who only exists within her head.
The story is unique in that it's the only one that doesn't involve any sort of Supernatural element.
It's just a mentally Disturbed woman who supposedly addicted to a form of pills then going off and killing a few people before being readmitted to a new Asylum.
After this we get the 4th story. It's interesting in that it doesn't break away to a separate event. It's told in a mere couple of minutes and involves a supposed neurosurgeon who is somehow able to transfer his solely energy into an inanimate object with a face resembling his own.
It's the story that sounds the most farcical is first. It's the story that sounds the most farcical at first. But is then revealed to be the most accurate as this man really was able to transfer his own soul Within these small robotic looking toys.
Who's than utilises said toy to kill the head doctor of the Asylum with a scalpel that was supposed to be used on him for a Lobotomy.
And this is another point in the movie where there's a great set up to an intriguing event but is ultimately just so darn silly as you watch a tiny little mechanical robot with an actor's head glued on top take a scalpel and kill a man with it.
It's absolutely wonderful.
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