Horror Hospital
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: James Boris IV, Kenneth Benda, Kurt Christian, Michael Gough, Robin AskwithDVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Color, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 91 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1999-11-02
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Elite Entertainment
Movie Reviews of Horror Hospital
Movie Review: Confessions from a Horror Health Farm.
Summary: 5 Stars
When attempts to break into the pop business leave him with nothing but a bloody nose, songwriter Jason Jones (Robin Askwith) decides to take a break with “Hairy Holidays” an outfit run by campy travel agent Dennis Price. Realising chatting the young holidaymaker up is getting him no where- Price sends Jason to pseudo-health farm Brittlehurst Manor. On the way via train Jason meets Judy (Vanessa Shaw- whose only other film appearance-uncredited- was in the 1972 transvestite comedy ‘Ooh, You are Awful’) a pretty girl en route to the same destination- always one for the ladies Askwith’s choice chat-up line here is ‘there’s no need to get uptight- I’m not going to rape you’. Both are unaware that the health farm (i.e. ‘Horror Hospital’) is a front for Dr Storm (Michael Gough) and his lobotomy experiments that turn wayward boys and girls into his mindless slaves ‘just like puppets- and I am the puppet master’. The wheel-chair bound quack also surrounds himself with an oddball entourage, including ex-brothel Madam Olga, Dwarf Frederick, and numerous Zombie bikers ready to dish out rough justice to any escapees. Jason and Judy’s stay offers few quiet moments- taps run blood, flashbacks reveal kinky misappropriation of lobotomy patients, and a Rolls-Royce fitted with a giant blade decapitates interfering third parties. The health-farm is also home to a hulking monster that resembles a badly turned out pudding, but whose real identity provides the film with one last plot twist- and it’s a jaw dropper. A long time favourite, Horror Hospital holds a special place in my heart and is still a film that I never tire of watching. Equally fascinating is the career of its director Antony Balch- an experimental filmmaker, exploitation film distributor, Bela Lugosi obsessive, William Burroughs collaborator and all round mischief maker who died young (of cancer in 1980). The best place to read about Balch is Colin Davis’ 1988 article ‘Eros Exploding- the films of Antony Balch’, while Barry Miles’ Burroughs biography ‘El Hombre Invisible’ also has some interesting tales to tell about Balch and Horror Hospital co-writer Alan Watson. Larger than life characters that Watson and Balch come across in those two texts its perhaps no surprise that every Horror Hospital character is in their own way memorable, from the sinister rail-guard played by Kenneth Benda (also in Balch’s Secrets of Sex and the pilot episode of Adam Adamant Lives!), Skip Martin’s victim/victimiser dwarf who goes around shouting ‘Don’t forget to brush your teeth’, ‘Baron’ Kurt Christian’s wooden hippie whose fairly lobotomised to begin with, while Robin Askwith- in very much a warm-up to his star roles in slap and tickle comedies of the Seventies makes for a far more colourful hero than seen in the average UK horror film of that era. Then there’s Michael Gough who Balch apparently prepared for the Dr Storm role by screening him The Devil Bat with that film’s star Bela Lugosi as Gough’s ‘inspiration’. While there is certainly allot of Lugosi evoked in Storm and his mad doctor schemes Gough clearly injected a good deal of his own horror film persona into the part as well, and at a time when he was starting to play more sedate villains (The Corpse, Satan’s Slave) the Balch film gives us one last look at the raving, scenery chewing Michael Gough of Horrors of the Black Museum and Konga.
Serving up its chills the tongue-in-cheek way, Horror Hospital’s scenarios are deliberately exaggerated and over the top (upon discovering a blood splattered bed diminutive Fred tells Judy and Jason ‘I hope you’ll be tidier than the people who had that room’) yet at the same time the film works as a totally straight horror/exploitation piece, a balancing act often attempted but rarely pulled off in horror comedies. References/send-ups of older horrors particularly the later Lugosi films and items like Mystery of the Wax Museum are also given an original spin by Balch’s peculiar world view which combines these olde horror film elements alongside finger on the pulse exploitation spectacles like severed head gore and shower scene nudity all cutting edge for a 1973 British production. Balch even throws in a glam/transvestite band whose prophetic wailings of ‘something ain’t right, something is wrong’ memorably open the film. The DVD release offers some good and bad news- on the one hand the film, presented in widescreen and sourced from the original negative, has never looked better- but, save for the UK trailer (“the most horrific programme ever shown in England”) the lack of extras disappoints. By all accounts this was quite a colourful production and a story worthy of an audio commentary- as such this DVD seems a bit of a missed opportunity. The packaging sells Horror Hospital well in horror film terms (quoting the immortal ‘the ultimate in blood and screams’ Dilys Powell review) but doesn’t quite capture the film’s anarchic edge, the blood red box is a more inspired touch but call me a nit-picker is it too much to ask someone to spell Balch’s first name right on the sleeve.
The rest of the Balch back-catalogue is comprised of a handful of experimental short films like Towers Open Fire and Bill and Tony (which would have made ideal DVD extras) while his only other feature was Secrets of Sex (aka Bizarre) a sometimes disturbing horror/sexploitation picture narrated by an Egyptian Mummy- that is quite unlike any other movie you’ll ever see- providing you can get to see the ultra-obscure Balch debut feature in the first place that is. Horror Hospital remains Balch’s most straight-forward and entertaining piece of filmmaking, and a super introduction to a slender but always fascinating body of work. Obscure for most of the Eighties, this DVD release restores to its proper place one of the all time great Brit horrors of the Seventies.
Summary of Horror Hospital
In swinging '70s London, Jason (Robin Askwith), a Brian Jones doppelgänger, grows weary of the rock scene and decides it's time for a vacation. He responds to a flyer for a "Hairy Holiday" and meets up with Judy (Vanessa Shaw) on the way, but they soon find that their resort is actually a Hippie-to-Zombie Conversion Center, complete with crazed researcher (Michael Gough), evil midget, and lobotomized longhairs. The doctor harvests human heads with a retractable blade attached to his limousine and runs his zombies via remote control. A monster who appears to be made of Silly Putty stalks the grounds and claims an unlucky victim or two, until the midget and heroes plan their escape from the goonatorium. Gough claims some great chewable dialogue (Peter Cushing must have been busy), the midget has a great pathos-laden death scene, and a toxic waste site is also crammed into the overstuffed plot. It's not quite funny enough to be a horror comedy, but there's enough gore to give it the feel of a later-era Hammer film. Horror Hospital breathes some new life into the mad-doctor-and-zombification-facility plot and moves fast enough to keep things interesting, at least. If you don't go into it expecting stupendous effects or deep narrative, it's a fun ride. --Jerry RenshawSimilar DVD Movies
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