ASYLUM OF SATAN (1972)
Carla Borelli, Charles Kissinger, Nick Jolley, Louis Bandy, Jack Peterkin, Claude Fulkerson, Mimi Honce
Directed by William Girdler
A young concert pianist named Lucina Martin has woken up to find herself in a strange bed in an unknown place. She's been transferred to the Pleasant Hill Asylum. Scared, confused, and kept against her will, she is to receive "special treatment" from the renowned Dr. Jason Specter, with his seemingly-abnormal she-male German nurse, Martine. Insisting she doesn't belong in the isolated, private mansion doubling as a hospital, once committed, Lucina grows uneasy about the strange atmosphere and even stranger patients. Why are they dressed in white hooded robes frozen in wheelchairs? And what's with all this obedience to the rules? After having nightmares & visions, she finally meets the quietly threatening Specter who assures her that being kept under his supervision for care is necessary because she has suffered a nervous breakdown. His specialty is 'pain' and she must stay to recover. She immediately demands to be released but her call falls on deaf ears and she is restrained. When plaid-wearing, pudgy fiancée Chris checks in on Lucina only to be told there are no visiting hours, he furiously senses something fishy and goes to the local police station for help hoping for a raid. Chris is heroic every bit as he is anti-sexy, and the cops are as useful as tits on a fish. When the Lieutenant tells Chris that Specter has been dead for years, and prior to his demise had been picked up for hailing Lucifer a number of times, Chris is naturally floored but atleast his fashion crimes are not an arrestable offense. Meanwhile, trapped inside the hell house, hapless Lucina witnesses the fellow inmates forced to endure their worst fears in order to be "cured" but the methods of remedy are homicidally hazardous.
It's obvious that this still-alive Doctor is up to no good, and aware that something evil is lurking in the building, Lucina discovers she is but one in a long line of co-eds who are kidnapped to be sacrificed to the Devil. Can she escape? Will she be rescued? Or will she be bumped off in a black magic ritual? Before THE EXORCIST, and THE OMEN set off a popular & influential, mainstream wave of 1970's demonic possession/Antichrist/satanic cult worshipping movies, (and those pictures which in turn spawned numerous knock-offs), this choppy, charmingly bad movie filmed entirely in Louisville,KY was one of the first to skim the surface. Inspiring, and diamond in the rough it most definitely is not, ASYLUM OF SATAN is an outright laugher because of how poorly made and entertainingly inept it is. In washed out colors, and drabbed in some dark earth-tones, what creepiness it has, is matched with both incidental brooding music and 70's groove rock. It also has very cheapo sfx complete with rubber snakes and plastic toy bugs pulled by fishing line; Halloween monster fangs falling out of a zombie's mouth; fire extinguisher exhaust standing in for poison gas(!); a horrendous Devil suit looking like a gorilla with a papier-mâché dragon-head mask; and proverbial stale dialogue twinned with weak acting. If eerie & terrifying was the intent here, it's clear the utter failure gave way to pure, quirky cheese instead. No blood, no nudity (inspite of a medicine cabinet peephole), scant violence, a tad of tension but not much suspense, flat sets, dull camera work, plodding pacing... this is hardly convincing horror and all the tameness assembled here makes for a hodgepodge of nonsense. Forget logic. Somewhat directionless and heavily boring, the movie is a labyrinth of ridiculous incoherency.
The surreal dream sequences are baffling as we're unsure if they are happening in the hospital or as a result of a mental breakdown entirely in Lucina's hallucinatory mind. The fiery end only helps to confuse this: seeing her in the same clothes that she wore in the beginning (inspite of the white robes we saw her in only seconds before), and flashes of the hospital appearing between state of the art modern and decrepit abandonment -- is there some sort of parallel bizarro world/alternate universe thing going on? And there's Lucina's whole abduction: as female virgins are the sacrificial ladies of choice, if her original Doctor (Dr. Nolan) is in with Specter's evil ceremonies, shouldn't he know that Lucina's cherry was busted a long time ago thus making her an unfit offering altogether? And wouldn't Specter know from having performed a full medical exam on her? Ugh, total rubbish. [The commentary for the Something Weird dvd-release states the production saw involvement from the Church of Satan, and has connections to ROSEMARY'S BABY. On the one hand I can see such co-operation by the COS on a kitschy/flimsy front, and yet it's also a disappointment for if true, could there really not have been a more impressive showing?] Ultimately, with its mounting murders, a deformed monster in room 319 that is never explained, a romantic flashback of winter sex, and egg cultists in the cafeteria(!), ASYLUM OF SATAN is a wacky whirlwind of low budget, slapdash schlock that would easily put a smile on Ed Wood, and see MST3K have a wisecracking field day. When a movie is hilariously awful, sometimes not hating it, regardless, oddly works in its favor. That's the deal here. Simply put, there is no way you can't make fun of this.
MISTER FROST (1990)
Jeff Goldblum, Kathy Baker, Alan Bates, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Roland Giraud, Daniel Gélin, Vincent Schiavelli
Directed by Philippe Setbon
Detective Felix Detweiler has been called to the French country estate (in England) of the mysterious Mr. Frost about a dead body. This after a tip-off from a pair of thieves who found a body in an Aston Martin in his garage. Frost is first met having finished burying the body in his yard. During an exchange of pleasantries over coffee, he unexpectedly and nonchalantly admits to the crime, with still another body found in his house. With the media now camped out on his property, 24 mutilated corpses (including children) are dug up from his garden and after his arrest, and being declared insane, (with nothing of his background and identity ever found), he is bounced from one institution to the next, until he is sent to St. Claire's Hospital, a posh asylum where he doesn't speak for the next 2yrs. From the initial investigation, Detweiler became obsessed with Frost. He was confused and intrigued by his flair, and ended up leaving the police force. Under tight security, when Frost is introduced to Dr. Sarah Day at the asylum, he announces he will only talk to her. He tells her he is Satan and that his aim is for her to kill him. Detweiler believes that from his own previous interrogation of him, Frost is truly infact the Devil, very much "in the details" as the saying goes, and begs Sarah to becareful. She isn't sold, and in the skepticism of Frost's claim, a soft-mannered boy becomes a murderer. But all doubt & denial is cast aside when Sarah's wheelchair-confined brother (paralyzed for most of his life) suddenly is able to rise and walk again, along with other patients displaying unexplainable, physical changes. Sarah has beome convinced Frost is telling the truth for in these strange occurrences of healing and premonitions, he takes credit for the disturbing happenings that point to him having some type of otherworldly power.
Frost plays games of a crooked nature -- producing miracles for the purpose of corrupting. Sarah agrees to shoot him to death. As Frost prepares for his execution, he thanks Sarah while waxing poetic on a plain of next levil-ish divinity. Will she pull the trigger? Does Frost have some final revelation, or last minute, insidious trickery up his sleeve? Have we seen the last of Detweiler? This supernatural-of-sorts chiller that pits a mass murderer against his psychiatrist, works on a simple premise: who will bend first to the other's will by way of belief? It feels like a throwback to stylish international thrillers with its touches of Euro locations. With his genius for understatement, Goldblum is in sharp, fine form as Frost. As an actor, his quirky mannerisms; unusual speech patterns of quiet, halt & pause delivery; quizzical facial expressions of tics; intimidating & intense gaze; and active eyebrows are well-suited here. Frost is suave, sly, smug, taunting & tempting with his mental mind games but always calm in stating he isn't crazy, just evil incarnate. [Why else would the sfx have superimposed crucifixes in his eyeballs?] I can just hear Frost's own narrative: Sure, I shoveled 2 dozen cadavers into the ground. No big deal, it means I'm enigmatic and complex. Labeled sick and dangerous because of the slayings? How does that render me out of my mind? The Franco-Anglo cast otherwise do a fair job with the "Is he or isn't he?" angle, but as the storyline is quite straightforward, it does tend to be a little lethargic, moving in some places between lackluster and dry. As personal faith is something that both wavers & weakens, and stiffens & strenghtens, Frost and Sarah each reinforce the other's resolve. [Not bad with Kathy Baker's performance which at times is too emotionally stiff].
Of peculiar interest is how Frost unintentionally manages to pull an anti-hero stance for how as the Prince of Lies, he can still be the antagonist who is humanized and even viewed as misunderstood. And yes, this is on top of the subdued wickedness he administers. For Lucifer -- as we imagine him -- to allow himself to be locked up, let alone captured, can only mean some kind of twisted amusement; ultimately to damn people to the Lake of Fire, but Frost's rational conversations with Sarah span psychology/philosophy/thelogy/law/science. With his own murky indifference equal to his enthusiasm, he's fed up of the world's lack of belief in him, and delivers a great rant. So who better to coerce, and have prove everybody wrong than a shrink (or an arresting officer) who has watched a videotape of his torture killings? Is Frost brilliant or downright nuts? Is he a butthurt hypocrite who can't accept being dismissed by others while he does so freely to them? Yet it's in this intellect of engaging, enlightening discussions (that even if he is deemed psychotic), never degenerates into full-blown, raging ego primed for attack. Our curiosity can actually allow to sympathize with someone so heinous and serpentine. He is every bit of a vile monster, and complimentary counterpart to Hannibal Lector. In all, MISTER FROST was one of those ignored VHS titles for rental back in the day. Smart, dark, and far more creepy than scary, it was originally passed over as underwhelming, and it's 80's-electro score (while typical for its decade) is lame, but the movie's later reception has since garnered a tag of 'forgotten gem' and now has a cult following. If you're after a Satan flick of an epic fire & brimstone caliber, you'll be disappointed. If however you're preference for 'the infernal walk among us' runs more subtle and cerebral, you might find this a decent and solid sleeper.
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