HORROR
HOSPITAL (1973)HORROR
HOSPITAL (1973)Produced by Richard Gordon and directed by legendary British sex/art film distributor, Antony Balch, Elite Entertainment has done a marvelous job with this early 70s horror classic. Balch-who died of cancer in 1980-previously directed the rarely seen SECRETS OF SEX (AKA TALES OF THE BIZARRE) for Gordon. With HORROR HOSPITAL, the team furnishes an even dose of high camp, black humor and a befitting amount of sex and blood to make for a very lively movie.
The pre-credit sequence introduces us to the wicked Dr. Storm (Michael Gough) and his dwarf helper Frederick (Skip Martin) who are tracking down two young, blood-soaked escapees in their hearse-like car. You see, the car has a retractable blade that neatly slices off the heads of its victims, catching them in a basket. This clever apparatus--the brainchild of screenwriter Alan Watson--is later used in key sequences during the film.
After the credits--complete with a streak of blood flowing down the center-we cut to a dingy club where a longhaired rock band is performing on a smoke--filled stage. Standing in the audience is Jason (the darling of the 70s British sex farce, Robin Askwith, who looks amazingly like dead Rolling Stone Brian Jones) who is enraged that the band ripped off his precious song. They perform a little ditty called "The Mark of Death," sounding and looking a bit like a hybrid of The New York Dolls and Spinal Tap. The drag queen leader-donned in yellow fright wig, red dress, and glitter make-up-resembles "Beef" from PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE, as he lays on-stage like a corpse during the act.
Jason starts uttering insults to his outlandish counterpart ("Who does she think she is, Greta Garbo? Looks more like a lemon morange pie on heat.") and it soon erupts into fisticuffs. Surprisingly, Jason turns out to be the weaker of the two as he ends up with a busted nose and a face full of blood. Realizing that he has to get away for a while, some hippies alert him to an ad in a magazine about "Hairy Holidays." Jason goes to the travel agency where he meets up with the eccentric Pollack (Dennis Price). After staring at the bulge in Jason's denims, Pollack sends him to what promises to be a relaxing health farm.
On the train, Jason encounters the pleasing Judy (Vanessa Shaw) who is headed to the same destination. It turns out that her homely Aunt Harris (Ellen Pollock) is married to Dr. Storm and helps run the clinic. When they finally get there, they are hastily greeted and forced to share a room, allowing for the inevitable hanky panky and spicy nude scenes. Strange happenings include a blood-soaked bed, blood pouring from a faucet, and an array of pale, hippie zombies with huge scars on their foreheads. It turns out that the host, Dr. Storm, is performing surgical mind-control experiments on young victims who show up at his residence, and Jason and Judy are next in line.
As Judy is being prepped in the lab, Jason is locked up in a cell. Another poor soul with high hair, Abraham (Kurt Christian from THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD and SINBAD AND THE EYE OF THE TIGER) shows up on Dr. Storm's doorstep looking for his "chick," only to be locked up with Jason. They are able to escape with the aid of pint-sized Frederick, but Storm's biker boys (zombified fellows dressed in black leather and crash helmets) recapture them. After being told the bizarre history of Storm's experiments, they discover his dark secret and get away, tearing out of the horror hospital amidst flames and explosions.
Many other plot ingredients beef up HORROR HOSPITAL, including flashbacks to Nazi Germany where Storm abducted female victims from Aunt Harris' bordello. There are plenty of decapitations, fight scenes, and chases, to keep things exciting. Most of the performances are exceptional, including hammy Gough (whose starring roles in horror films are too far and in between), the always likable Askwith as the hip, young hero, and the puffy-looking Price with his usual comedic flair. Best of all is Skip Martin who adds a stroke of dark humor to his role and practically steals every scene that he's in.
HORROR HOSPITAL's score is comprised of library music by De Wolfe. Most of it is really befitting, giving a frenzied NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD-like feel to the proceedings. Other times, the music is ridiculously inappropriate. A good example of this is when Abraham shows up strutting along the clinic's grounds while an overbearing tune that resembles the theme to "The Dating Game" plays in the background.
One interesting fact about this film is that the two actors who portray the Biker Boys, Martin Grace and Colin Skeaping, went on to become very prominent stunt men and still work to this day. Grace did stunt work on most of the Roger Moore James Bond films, as well as the entire "Indiana Jones" series, and Skeaping worked on some of the "Star Wars" epics.
In the early 70s, the British horror film cycle was witnessing the demise of Hammer (though certainly not in terms of quality), the rise of Pete Walker's thought-provoking carnage programmers, as well as black horror comedies like THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES and THEATER OF BLOOD. HORROR HOSPITAL aptly fits in the later category. Simply put, it's a low budget yet amusing little film that rightly deserves its place in the genre.
Like much of Elite's product, the picture quality is outstanding. The fresh 1:85.1 transfer brings out rich colors, and the Eastman-lensed film is virtually free of markings and other blotches. The letterboxing also seems to be proper, as tops of heads are never cut off, giving us the insurance that there was no over-matting. The sound is also fine, and there is a brief British certificate "X" trailer that has the film double-billed with T.V. Mikel's THE CORPSE GRINDERS. The trailer is nice, but it only shows one quick scene from the film, ending with a shot of the British quad poster (Michael Gough gawking and yielding a scalpel).
One small gripe I have is the disappointing cover art. I know for a fact that catching poster art exists for this film, but Elite chose to use indistinct, shadowy imagery that really doesn't fittingly promote HORROR HOSPITAL. Hopefully, this will not turn potential buyers away since it's definitely a disc worth owning. Thanks to a fine company like Elite and a gentleman like Richard Gordon who is enthusiastic about unleashing his films to a modern audience, HORROR HOSPITAL has been rescued from obscurity and into the sacred DVD domain. (George R. Reis)