Horror Hospital (1974)

Very best movie i ever watch

Sorry, this movie sucks

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

"Horror Hospital" is a great deal of fun, and worthy viewing for horror fans who can appreciate high camp. It's macabre, to be sure, but it's clearly never meant to be taken that seriously.Robin Askwith of various "Confessions" films plays Jason Jones, who's kicked out of a rock group and decides that he needs some R & R. At the suggestion of a friend, he checks out an outfit named "Hairy Holidays" (!), who offer as an option a trip to a health spa / country manor. Unfortunately a lot of ghoulish stuff goes down at this place, and it's all supervised by the demented Dr. Storm (Michael Gough). Accompanying Jason is new acquaintance Judy Peters (Vanessa Shaw), who's trying to connect with her Aunt Harris (Ellen Pollock), who works with the bad doctor. Also along for the ride are put upon dwarf Frederick (Skip Martin) and Abraham (Kurt Christian), who shows up at the place while "looking for his chick".With all of the elements thrown into this bloody brew, it would be hard NOT to have a good time with it. We get zombies (or, rather, people who've been rendered zombie-like), nefarious "bike boy" henchmen, a lethal and nifty decapitating limousine, and a mysterious pulpy monster hanging around the premises. The movie just gets right down to business and delivers some pretty priceless moments. It never really goes for credibility - who wouldn't want to leave a place the moment they saw a bloody bed? - instead opting for off the wall horror movie theatrics. It's just a hoot.And much of the cast does a fine job of playing things straight, with the exception of the delightful Mr. Gough, playing his villain with lip smacking gusto, and the hilarious Martin, who has one GREAT sequence where he has his work cut out for him as he tries to unlock a cell door. Askwith is lively and engaging, Shaw makes for a very appealing and attractive bird, and Christian has the best entrance in the film, as his first appearance is underscored by a peppy musical theme that he seems to be able to hear!The library music used for the score is thunderous stuff, while the rock song heard near the beginning is a riot. Decent doses of gore also help to spice things up, and things really get cooking for the climactic action.All in all, this comes recommended to genre buffs, and is truly deserving of more recognition.Seven out of 10.

Perhaps the late great Michael Gough's last stab at a leading role and he relishes it, but the film (made for another prominent exploitation figure, Richard Gordon) lets him down pitifully! Incidentally, I guess the reason why his name is not as well-known (apart from aficionados) as that of, say, Vincent Price or Christopher Lee is that, even at his best, the overall quality of the films were markedly inferior! Anyway, this pits him in another typical environment – people being sent to a health clinic come face to face with their worst nightmare; similarly, we have a reconstituted fire victim for a villain with a dwarf as his all-purpose servant (played by Skip Martin). The hero is the future star of the sexy "Confessions" series Robin Askwith, while his female counterpart (who does little throughout the film but disrobe and scream her head off!) proves to be the niece of Gough's assistant and lover, a former Madam whose clients had served as the doctor's guineas pigs!! Typically, he intends building an army made up of wholly subservient subjects; amusingly, they are frequently made to exercise in his private gym but this does nothing to remove the very conspicuous scars on their lobotomized foreheads! Also on hand is Dennis Price as the bemused (and openly gay) tour agent who advertises Gough's specialized treatment; a review I read claims his performance is hilarious but, to me, it only felt embarrassing! His character is eventually revealed to have been blackmailing Gough, but he is disposed of before long (as are a number of others) in inventively grisly fashion via decapitation-by-blades protruding from the doctor's Rolls Royce (with a strategically-placed basket to catch the falling head)! There is also the sinister elderly station master (perhaps intended to evoke Boris Karloff!) who informs Gough of new arrivals. What to make, then, of the slimy Swamp Thing-like monster which is revealed to be hiding under the villain's 'synthetic flesh'…?! P.S. For a more rewarding (and sobering) contemporaneous film on the same themes, try Alain Jessua's SHOCK TREATMENT aka DOCTOR IN THE NUDE starring Alain Delon and the late Annie Girardot.

In Britain between the rise of Hammer Horror films, sometime around 1958 and the release of their version of 'Dracula', and the early/mid 1970's there were scores of cheep horror films released. These can, I believe, be placed into one of three categories, Low Budget Classic (ie the aforementioned 'Dracula', its stablemate of the same period 'Frankenstein', 'The Pit and The Pendulum' etc), Cult Films like 'Circus of Horrors', 'Scream and Scream Again' etc, and the outright awful! Guess which category I would place 'Horror Hospital'?! This film is simply ludicrous, far too illogical, even within the world it has created for itself, and so poorly put together that it gets nowhere near being a LBC, and falls so short of being a Cult that it is laughable.I am aware that it is difficult to view any horror film of any age by modern day standards, the genre has moved on so rapidly, and become so much more graphic, but even by comparing this film to its contemporaries it falls well short of any real horror and scares. Today it is about as scary as a wet weekend in Weston-Super-Mare (for non-Brits that is a seaside town in the west of England that is mainly populated by the over 60's!, a British equivalent of, say, Atlantic City!). The concept of a Health Farm - not even a proper hospital note! (the makers had to squeeze in a line of dialogue to justify the title!) - being used for experimentation on the feckless youth of the day - young people who, of course, no one will notice have gone missing (don't these kids have parents?) and turned into "zombies" (although as "zombies" I would have thought that Dr Storm would have found better things to use them for beyond that of acrobatics!) is beyond belief. To go into all the plot holes would take all day, but I have one question, why do all the thugs wear leathers and crash helmets all the time, even when in doors? (Apart, of course, to disguise the fact that at least one is a woman! When was the last time you saw a male thug clearly wearing lipstick?!) The one really big question about this mess of a film is this, just how did talented people like Michael Gough, Ellen Pollock and, most notably, Dennis Price, became embroiled in such rubbish? Wait... I have thought of one redeeming feature, albeit a personal one! Over the past few years I have become friends with a Mr Robert Dearberg. Guess who was the editor on this mess? Yep, my old mate Bob Dearberg, the one and same person! We spend a lot of time discussing the merits of this film, that movie etc, and often disagree. The next time Bob slags off a film I have enjoyed I can look him in the eyes and say just two words.. "Horror Hospital"...!

A worn out musician decides to take break and go a relaxing vacation. He chooses to stay at health farm located out in the country and on the way there, he meets a girl on the train going to the same place to see her aunty. The mysteriously mean, but crippled Dr. Storm, who's performing brain surgery on the holidaymakers and turning them into his obedient zombies, runs the resort. When the two teens find out about his insane experiments and learn that's their fate. They go out of their way to get away. But they not only have the doctor to face, but also his dwarf sidekick, an army of leather wearing zombies and that of a hideous monster.Just wait a second, as I just pick up my jaw from the ground. Now, what was that all about!? "Horror Hospital" has got to be one of the most ridiculous and over-exaggerated horror films that I've ever came across, but you know what? I had a real ball with this blend of macabre and camp! That's high camp of a VERY demented type. The praise that I've given makes it sound great and I had a good old time with it. Although, don't be expecting anything particularly fresh and this deranged piece is one downright messy film that doesn't have any idea of the word coherence. So from that point it recycles the same old formula and leaves a lot of things up in the air. The clichés and predictability flows freely, without any sort of constraints. Also forget about logic in the script and story as that's thrown out of the window for absurd situations that don't make much sense. Actually the whole film doesn't make a whole a lot of sense, with the so many potholes and laziness. There's so much going on in the plot that there's such vagueness to everything and the problem is it tries to squeeze too much madness without explaining what happen before it and how it came to that situation. But all is forgiven because it's so abnormal and hugely enjoyable. So, just go with the flow because if you try to decipher what's going on, you'll receive a splitting headache for your troubles. The whole mysterious awe about what's going is just so hard to shake that I couldn't keep my eyes off it.The actual story is no more then a melodrama disguised as a Gothic shocker, which spurts along some exploitation and black humour along the way. Actually, the whole thing turns into a black farce with everything being poked fun at and the blood splattering is pretty much in a comic book state. Because of that the violence isn't particularly gruesome and it doesn't make you squirm, but the gratuitous bloodletting and nudity does run freely. Damn those leather-clad zombies really do like to hand out a beating! The great thing about it is that everyone involved knows how stupid it really is and don't take the thing so seriously. The performances are plain awful and purely amateurish to say the least. But it's Michael Gough's hellishly campy performance that steals the lime light as the crazy Doctor and Skip Martin as Frederick the dwarf adds a cheeky vibe to the film. The dialogue joins it with its ineptness. But even though these things are terrible there's some energy amongst it and you can't go wrong with the tongue-in-cheek approach it takes. Another strong feature is that of the setting. The resort, which more looks like a castle on the inside, has an oppressive awe about it and the grand Gothic exterior makes it look larger and menacing than it really is. Being isolated in the countryside helps provide such a brood atmosphere too. Although, it's definitely hilariously bad, it still does have its eerie moments worked in. Also the robust score builds on the suspense and uneasiness greatly and the soundtrack is reasonably groovy. Well, what do expect from that era. Really, this is purely utter ham that breathes sadism and sleaze in a very cheap way.No way can you call this a good film, because it's not. The aim of the flick is to entertain with it being heavily laced with bloody, sleazy and humorous context. Even if the production is pure rubbish, it does it effectively enough that I can see this becoming a guilty pleasure of mine. Only for people who really enjoy camp horror and if you do, you're in for one big treat.