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Post by dem on Jun 5, 2020 20:44:34 GMT
William Johnston - Asylum (Bantam, Dec. 1972) Blurb: IF THE TALES FROM THE CRYPT GAVE YOU NIGHTMARES ...
ASYLUM WILL MAKE THEM COME TRUE!
Black magic, murder, and madness-most-bizarre stalk the tortured inmates of Dunsmoor, a mental institution in which life is a torment and death is the most desirable escape ... ASYLUM, a New Experience in Heart-stopping Terror! A macabre new film from Cinerama! Dr. John Foster applies for the post of senior houseman at Dunsmoor Asylum, a massive former manor house in the English countryside. On arrival he's met by Dr. Lionel Rutherford who informs them that, sadly, there's been a change of plan. Dr. B. Starr, will not, after all, be conducting today's interview, having himself been confined as a dangerous lunatic following a murderous assault on a colleague. Essentially, the man admired in medical circles as Dr. Starr is no more, entirely vanquished by a new personality. Foster is confident he could identify this particular patient just by listening to his or her story. Rutherford sets the young doctor a challenge. He will have Reynolds, the orderly, introduce him to four inmates. If Dr. Foster correctly identifies Starr, he lands the job. Foster accepts. We learn that he is one of these new-fangled, so-called "progressive" psychiatrists who abhor cruelty and argue that, in treating the mentally unwell, the best results are achieved by "Kindness. Understanding. Insight." Rutherford proudly assures him there's no room for any of that wet lib nonsense at Dunsmoor. "This is an asylum for the incurably insane. Not the slightly disturbed. The incurably insane. We don't hold hands here." If you don't let those bastard loonies know who's boss early doors they'll end up running the show. Foster's first challenge is to endure six hideous torture paintings - depicting scenes from Bedlam - as he ascends the staircase. Talk about insensitive! Boy, there are gonna be some BIG changes around here. The amiable Reynolds conducts him to Bonnie's room. So what's so "incurable" about this one? Frozen Fear. Walter is a kept husband. Despite Ruth's vast wealth, he's sick of her and seeks a divorce. Ruth refuses whereupon Bonnie, his bit-on-the-side, hatches a diabolical scheme. Walter must murder Ruth, chop her into pieces, store them in a freezer, and then they will jet off to begin a new life of luxury in the tropics! What could possibly go wrong? Walter duly invests in a cleaver and pays for a freezer to be installed in the cellar ... and it's quite likely the killer couple would have triumphed had not Ruth recently taken a keen interest in voodoo. Walter first realises something is wrong when a rustling brown-paper package of meat comes shuffling up the basement stairs ... To be continued ...
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Post by helrunar on Jun 5, 2020 20:50:46 GMT
Nice scan and the usual great write-up, Kev. I missed ASYLUM way back when and finally saw it several years ago. Apart from Robert Powell and Patrick Magee, it did not do much for me, and in fact I don't even recall much about it. Perhaps the book version of the stories holds more interest.
cheers, Steve
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Post by andydecker on Jun 5, 2020 21:04:58 GMT
That is a strange one. William Johnston writes a novel after the screenplay by Robert Bloch, who transformed his short stories into the screenplay. I wonder how the original short stories differ from this third version of them.
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Post by dem on Jun 6, 2020 9:52:40 GMT
We've some notes on the Bloch originals on the Robert Bloch & Amicus thread. There are definitely a number of subtle differences in the storylines and, in some instances, the names of the protagonists are altered for the screenplay. "He went to the window dummy that was standing against the wall just inside the doorway. The dummy had seen better days. It had painted black hair, a curled moustache, staring blue eyes and a fixed smile, marred by missing chips of paint. It was stiffly and awkwardly posed and dressed in an ill-fitting tweed suit. All in all, the dummy had the look of an unburied, decaying corpse." Our next madman under the spotlight is Bruno, The Weird Tailor, who was facing destitution when the mysterious Mr. Smith offered to pay a staggering £200 should he custom design a suit for his son. He must first agree to work to the strictest specification. Nothing by machine. All by hand. Material to be provided by Smith. The buttons must be bone, turned and bored by hand. Work to be commenced on the stroke of midnight and cease at five in the morning. Bruno, who takes a pride in his work, follows every bizarre instruction to the letter, duly delivers the suit to Mr. Smith's hovel, only for the client to request time to pay. He has squandered his wealth on some mouldy old book, De Vermis Mysteriis, which includes the knitting pattern for a suit to return the dead to life. In the ensuing frank exchange of views, Smith pulls a gun. They grapple and Mr. Smith suffers a fatal bullet wound. An accident, but who will believe an impoverished tradesman? Bruno grabs both book and beautiful suit and flees home, ordering Anna to destroy them. Alas, she can't resist hanging the shimmering costume on her friend and confidante, Otto the dummy ..... Now we pay a visit to young Barbara, but what good is a doctor to her? She needs a lawyer. Someone who understands that it wasn't her went all psycho and stabbed her brother to death .... Lucy Comes to Stay. We join the action as George drives sister Barbara home to the family mansion after a spell in hospital where she was treated for an unspecified mental disorder. George has hired a live-in nurse, Miss Higgens, to mollycoddle the patient back into the swing of "normality." Barbara finds the constant surveillance insufferable. If only things could return to how they were before her best friend spoiled everything. It will be tough but she'll have to try get used to life without smart, manipulative, scissor-happy Lucy, who always knows what to do ... TBC |
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Post by andydecker on Jun 6, 2020 10:51:04 GMT
Of the four stories Lucy comes here to stay is the only one which I can remember clearly from the movie and which had a bit of bite. The others not so much. The crawling parcels of Frozen Fear were unintentionally funny in their cleanliness. I wish I could pack parcels that neat. The Weird Taylor was too much a reprise of Cushing's Tales from the Crypt episode. And the tiny robots of the last story were pretty ridiculous.
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Post by ripper on Jun 6, 2020 14:21:36 GMT
Of the four stories Lucy comes here to stay is the only one which I can remember clearly from the movie and which had a bit of bite. The others not so much. The crawling parcels of Frozen Fear were unintentionally funny in their cleanliness. I wish I could pack parcels that neat. The Weird Taylor was too much a reprise of Cushing's Tales from the Crypt episode. And the tiny robots of the last story were pretty ridiculous. It was the final story that disappointed me--I just didn't find those tiny robots at all menacing. Fine cast, though. In the first one, the reaction of the wife to being bought a new freezer was rather endearing, but those parcels...how could the killer not avoid them, they weren't exactly fast-moving. |
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Post by andydecker on Jun 6, 2020 17:43:51 GMT
...how could the killer not avoid them, they weren't exactly fast-moving. Guess they were frozen with fear. |
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Post by ripper on Jun 6, 2020 17:52:17 GMT
...how could the killer not avoid them, they weren't exactly fast-moving. Guess they were frozen with fear. lol nice one. |
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Post by dem on Jun 7, 2020 11:07:18 GMT
Can Dr. Foster correctly identify Dr. Starr? The truth is, he no longer cares. Dunsmoor is a disgrace, no improvement of the barbaric practices depicted in the paintings, and should be shut without delay. There is no pretence at curing the patients of their delusions, just lock them up to rot away the remainder of their wretched lives. Foster intends to make his feelings known to the highest authority. But before that, he might just as well meet the final candidate and get it over with. Mannikins of Horror. The fourth contender. Dr. Byron, the brilliant physician, neurosurgeon, orthopaedist. "Lately I've found another speciality - even more fascinating" - namely, programming a half-dozen mannikins to do his bidding, their plasticine faces modelled from those of former colleagues. Fools! What do they know about Godlike genius? The most advanced of the mannikins bears the doctor's own facial likeness. He claims the ability to breath life into his creations, and proves as much by sending mini-Byron on a murder mission to the office of Dr. Rutherford .... Story is not really that much less ridiculous in print than on film but it sets us up neatly for the final reveal. Johnston's prose is competent if uninspired hackwork. I prefer Jack Oleck's Tales From The Crypt from the same year, but then, he had stronger material to work with. |
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Oct 17, 2021 17:24:09 GMT
I wasn't even aware of this tie-in until I spotted this thread last night, as it's not mentioned in any of the books I've read on Amicus. Cue a quick flurry of internet activity to secure myself a copy to sit alongside my recently read Jack Oleck adaptations of the two Amicus E.C. Comics films and John Burke's adaptation of 'Doctor Terror's House of Horrors'.
I notice from the write up that the novelisation must have been written after the last minute changes to Bloch's original running order for the stories - he had originally begun with 'Lucy Comes To Stay', and planned to build up gradually to the more supernatural elements. But it was decided that audiences' patience might be tested by not having some mayhem early on, so it was swapped with 'Frozen Fear' in the edit. I'm occasionally tempted to try a home re-edit of the film, just to see how it would work with the original build up.
As for the book, which adapts the screenplay adaptation of Robert Bloch's original short stories, I suppose it's no odder than the tie-in novelisation of 'Bram Stoker's Dracula', which adapted James V Hart's screenplay adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel, with the additional cheek of having the original author's name in the title of a book several stages removed from his original work.
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