Micro-Genre 2: The Lunatics Are Running the Asylum
Way back in March, I announced a series of articles on "micro-genres." These are grouplets of films that have some common theme and characteristics, but can't be seen as a large enough to be a sub-genre of their own. I'm finally getting around the the second of these today. Warning: Spoilers ahead, for those who don't like to be told about the plot of a film they haven't seen.
So, this time around I'm considering films in which a group of inmates of a mental hospital become the wardens. There's a flurry of these films around the early 1970s, which I suspect reflects the disappointment of many "Utopian" projects of self-organization during the late 60s. I don't see these exactly as "conservative backlash," but more a symptom of the burnout and frustration many former idealists were suffering.
The first to consider is "Asylum" (1972), directed by Roy Ward Baker and starring Peter Cushing and a host of Hammer Studios character actors, but actually produced through Hammer-imitators Amicus. This is a typical "horror anthology," with each story being built around an inmate of the hospital, although very little of the action takes place there. Horror writer and old buddy of HP Lovecraft Robert Bloch adapted four of his short stories, and they vary from quite chilling to just OK on the screen. The wraparound story is a young doctor who is applying for the position of head doctor of the hospital, as the previous head doctor is now mad. He is introduced to each of the patients in turn, hears their stories, and must guess which is the mad doctor Starr. In the end, of course, it turns out to be the person he believed to be a sane orderly.
Next we have "Silent Night, Bloody Night" (1974), directed by Theodore Gershuny and starring James Patterson (who died of cancer before its release) and, in a minor role, a very old John Carradine (who survived for several more years - and movies). This is not to be confused with the 80's slasher series involving an axe-murderer in a Santa suit. It's one of those movies that video guides tell you has an "incomprehensible" plot - but that's because those reviewers are too lazy to watch it two or three times attentively. The plot centers around a man who returns for his inheritance, only to learn that he was born of madness, incest, and rape. It seems that his mother was interned as an inmate in the spooky old mansion his father/grandfather built just at the time that the inmates broke loose and murdered all the doctors. After their wild orgy, they rejoined society and quickly became the most respectable citizens in town! Now, of course, they'll do anything to protect their secret.
The final entry in this genre is probably the best, "Edgar Allen Poe: Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon" (AKA "The Mansion of Madness", 1973), directed by Juan Lopez Moctezuma and starring a whole lot of Mexican actors. Moctezuma was an associate of the bizarre avant-garde filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky, and they definitely share a taste for colorful and grotesque surrealism. Poe fans may recall that the original story "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether" involves a visit to a mental hospital in France whose "soothing system" of treatment has led to an uprising and the imprisonment of the staff, while the visitor is treated to multiple examples of people who believe themselves to be animals or inanimate objects. Much of that is portrayed here, but with even more imaginative detail than Poe managed, and a great deal of nudity and implied sex as well (Poe did have a bit of that in the story, probably what inspired this particular madman to film it!). There is an impressive number of extras and the fight scenes and especially the riots are most convincing - it looks like people were simply told to go over the top and then filmed doing it. As a vision of the world without authority, this is both inspiring and horrifying.
So, this time around I'm considering films in which a group of inmates of a mental hospital become the wardens. There's a flurry of these films around the early 1970s, which I suspect reflects the disappointment of many "Utopian" projects of self-organization during the late 60s. I don't see these exactly as "conservative backlash," but more a symptom of the burnout and frustration many former idealists were suffering.
The first to consider is "Asylum" (1972), directed by Roy Ward Baker and starring Peter Cushing and a host of Hammer Studios character actors, but actually produced through Hammer-imitators Amicus. This is a typical "horror anthology," with each story being built around an inmate of the hospital, although very little of the action takes place there. Horror writer and old buddy of HP Lovecraft Robert Bloch adapted four of his short stories, and they vary from quite chilling to just OK on the screen. The wraparound story is a young doctor who is applying for the position of head doctor of the hospital, as the previous head doctor is now mad. He is introduced to each of the patients in turn, hears their stories, and must guess which is the mad doctor Starr. In the end, of course, it turns out to be the person he believed to be a sane orderly.
Next we have "Silent Night, Bloody Night" (1974), directed by Theodore Gershuny and starring James Patterson (who died of cancer before its release) and, in a minor role, a very old John Carradine (who survived for several more years - and movies). This is not to be confused with the 80's slasher series involving an axe-murderer in a Santa suit. It's one of those movies that video guides tell you has an "incomprehensible" plot - but that's because those reviewers are too lazy to watch it two or three times attentively. The plot centers around a man who returns for his inheritance, only to learn that he was born of madness, incest, and rape. It seems that his mother was interned as an inmate in the spooky old mansion his father/grandfather built just at the time that the inmates broke loose and murdered all the doctors. After their wild orgy, they rejoined society and quickly became the most respectable citizens in town! Now, of course, they'll do anything to protect their secret.
The final entry in this genre is probably the best, "Edgar Allen Poe: Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon" (AKA "The Mansion of Madness", 1973), directed by Juan Lopez Moctezuma and starring a whole lot of Mexican actors. Moctezuma was an associate of the bizarre avant-garde filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky, and they definitely share a taste for colorful and grotesque surrealism. Poe fans may recall that the original story "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether" involves a visit to a mental hospital in France whose "soothing system" of treatment has led to an uprising and the imprisonment of the staff, while the visitor is treated to multiple examples of people who believe themselves to be animals or inanimate objects. Much of that is portrayed here, but with even more imaginative detail than Poe managed, and a great deal of nudity and implied sex as well (Poe did have a bit of that in the story, probably what inspired this particular madman to film it!). There is an impressive number of extras and the fight scenes and especially the riots are most convincing - it looks like people were simply told to go over the top and then filmed doing it. As a vision of the world without authority, this is both inspiring and horrifying.