Yes! A surprisingly fine British anthology horror from
Amicus and in a nice release from Rapid Stream. Some stories are better
than others but
overall Asylum was very good with it's 4 stories within the frame of
the main story.
Young Dr. Martin (Robert Powell) arrives by car at the
Dunsmoor Mental Hospital to the music of Mussorgskiy's A Night on Bald
Mountain,
and he's there to meet the boss, Dr. Starr, regarding a job. But, instead
he is met by Dr. Rutherford (Patrick Magee) who tells him that Starr
has
suffered a mental breakdown and that he's now a patient at the institution.
He challenges Dr. Martin to find out who/whom of the patients that
are Starr. The orderly (Geoffrey Bayldon) take him upstairs to meet
4 of the patients, who's Dr. Starr ?
Patient 1 - Bonnie's story: She (Barbara Perkins) and her lover Walter
(Richard Todd) plans to murder his rich wife (Sylvia Sims) and he axes
her to death, chops her up and put the pieces in the cellar freezer.
When Bonne arrives at the scene something has gone terribly wrong
Patient 2 - Bruno's story: He's an elderly tailor married
to his wife Anna, and once a successful tailor he's now out of mode
and without customers.
Bruno (a great Barry Morse) can't pay the rent and
is in desperate need of money when a mysterious customer, Mr. Smith
(Peter Cushing) turns up
and orders a suit for his son. Bruno has to make it out of some strange
material (that Smith hands him) and he's only allowed to work on it
on nights
after midnight. What strange scheme has Mr. Smith concocted and why
? Will poor Bruno get his money ?
Patient 3 - Barbara: She (Charlotte Rampling) comes
home to her brother's house with a nurse waiting for her. She has inherited
everything from her
parents and her brother (James Villiers) nothing. What has happened
and why is she held like a prisoner ? Can Lucy (Britt Ekland) help her
escape?
Patient 4 - Byron: Dr. Byron (Herbert Lom) makes strange
weird looking dolls and they kill people on his command
A Question: No one missed Max ?
I liked Story 2 - The Weird Tailor and 4 - Mannikins of Horror better
than story 1 - Frozen Fear and 3 - Lucy Comes to Stay
The film is presented in widescreen 1.85:1 with an english
audio DD 2.0 with swedish subtitles. Original trailer and TV spot, trailers
for other films
