According to the Amazon blurb, Asylum is "widely regarded as one of the best horror anthology films ever made." I was not familiar with it, but I generally don't actively seek out anthologies. I haven't had a lot of luck with them; other than Creepshow I can't really even think of one that I've liked. But due to a wedding, I knew I had to watch something that could be watched in segments... so there you go.
And yeah, Asylum is pretty good. Probably a bit tame by today's standards, and it's a little more psychologically-based than I'd usually go for. But it's called and takes place in an Asylum, so I guess that makes sense.
The other thing about anthologies? They are either really hard or really easy to write about. I'm going to go the easy route and will spare you the details of each individual story. And essentially, because of the structure of the stories, a synopsis would serve double duty as a mild spoiler. Another good reason for me to be lazy.
But the gist of it is that Dr. Martin (Robert Powell) goes job hunting at the Dunsmoor Asylum (for the "incurably insane" - they mention that more than once), which is run by Dr. Starr. He's told by the new guy in charge that Starr has snapped and is now a patient. Martin's "interview" will be to head up to the cells and listen to the stories that the four patients have to tell. He'll then have to decide who is in fact (the now "incurably insane") Dr. Starr. If he can guess correctly? Job!
So it's not a bad set up, and it's actually a functional wraparound in that the plot progresses between each story and keeps things moving along nicely. The first story was my favorite by far - it's got some genuinely chilling visuals and starts things off on a very strong note. The second one has got an appearance by Peter Cushing, which is always a plus. And the third has Britt Ekland of (Wicker Man fame) - so really, even the weaker stories have interesting performers in them.
My big complaint is that they all feel kind of "samey." There isn't really a distinctive feel to set each tale apart, and they all (to me, at least) have a 'Tell-Tale Heart'-ish vibe. But they are still pretty entertaining, and feel evenly distributed throughout the 90 minute runtime. None of them overstay their welcome and overall Asylum is well paced.
Since it seems like anthology stories often depend on a twist, it's pretty easy to see where each story is going. It feels a little generic/predictable at times, but I think the film is old enough that you can cut it some slack on that front.
It's never a super gruesome film, but I think it's disturbing enough (especially the first story) that it's not the type of early 70s film that has aged into family-friendly territory just yet. Never mind the PG-rating - while on the whole it's not a hard pill to swallow, there's definitely some stuff in there that would be nightmare fuel for a younger, impressionable kid.
Asylum is a well enough made film. Again, I wish there was a little more of a stylistic difference between each individual story, but the overall style and tone they stick with more or less works. It's competently shot and has a decent sense of atmosphere - I would have liked something a little more overtly gothic ("The Weird Tailor" comes closest), but what can you do? I have to mention the score too - it's really busy, but really good. It almost seems a little too layered and overly complicated for a film that has just a few characters, but it works. It's a nice reminder of a time where even non-prestige pictures had big, bombastic scores from a large orchestra.
I think the fact that some of the twists are kind of telegraphed neuters the tension a bit - but again, these types of stories have been done to death over the last 40+ years. That's not Asylum's fault. It's still a perfectly functional and well done film. I've kind of come to accept that anthologies just aren't my thing... even the afore mentioned Creepshow would just be "fine" to me. I can't put my finger on it, but I think I miss the character development (and burn time) a feature length film has to offer. And even "good-bad" movies need time to work their magic - I don't know if there is such a thing as a "good-bad" short. And anthology stories feel less nuanced to me - oftentimes they are just working towards that one big "aha" moment, and there isn't always a lot else to latch onto.
Sorry, I didn't mean to go off on a rant there. That being said, there are still ones that work just fine. Asylum is one of the good ones, and while I wasn't crazy about it, it was a perfectly decent way to spend 90 minutes.
I would recommend this film.
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