La Griffe de Frankenstein

Rock and roll enthusiast, Jason Jones (Robin Askwith) needs a vacation. Luckily for him, a magazine ad leads him to Hairy Holiday, where Mr. Pollack (Dennis Price) sets Robin up with a suitable getaway.

Next stop, the enormous Brittlehurst Manor, where Jason and his new friend, Judy (Vanessa Shaw) encounter Dr. Christian Storm (Michael Gough) and his creepy crew of nefarious cronies. These include the diminutive Frederick (Skip Martin), the devilish Aunt Harris (Ellen Pollock), and various, cadaverous zombies and bikers. Will Jason and Judy ever leave this terrible place?

HORROR HOSPITAL is a crackpot menagerie of the macabre and maniacal. Dr. Storm is carrying out unholy experiments, while something resembling a man made entirely of Silly Putty roams the mansion. If absurdity is what you seek, then seek no more! Gruesome and beyond bonkers, HH delivers the ghastly goods!

CONTAINS: Mad science, brains on a plate, nudity, and decapitation as motor sport!...

'Horror Hospital' is a cheap and very cheerful slice of sexy, early '70s horror sleaze. It's probably the most polished director Anthony Balch made before his untimely death at the age of 42 in 1980. It was also the final acting job for Vanessa Shaw (Judy) who seems to have retired after this.

The cast is impressive. Robin Askwith - whose roles in often hugely un-PC fare such as 'Bless This House', 'Confessions of a Window Cleaner' and 'Carry On, Girls' haven't stifled a prolific career - plays Jason, a true-to-form randy twit who emerges as a kind of hero toward the end (his first words to Judy are, 'Relax, I'm not gonna rape you'). Skip Martin, fresh from Hammer's 'Vampire Circus', is Frederick. Also starring are Eileen Pollock, Dennis Price and top-billed Michael Gough, who puts far more effort into his role as Dr Storm than he did for Hammer's ground-breaking 'Dracula'. You might wonder what these people are doing in gory nonsense like this among a supporting cast of mostly non-actors, but the fact remains - it's gruesomely good fun.

This of course is not a "great film", but its heart is in the right place and many of the characters really go with it, despite the preposterous plot.

Michael Gough, in particular, is great as the evil doctor, and Skip Martin has a lot of fun with the "igor" role, as does Dennis Price with his cameo. The main couple as also good - so much so that I was intrigued to see that Vanessa Shaw apparently never did another film. Robin Askwith of course went on to create a reputation of enduring fame.

What I found most evocative, strangely, were the scenes on and about the railway - it looked convincingly like Victoria and the Brighton Line, and the interior carriage scenes took me straight back to commuting to school on trains that looked exactly like that.

I didn't find it as funny as I think I was supposed to, but it must have worked very well as a late-night TV horror treat as a complement to the Hammer canon.

It's one of those creaky British horrors that always show up on the BBC in the early hours of the morning. The reason for this is that the only ones watching are the drunks staggering in from the pub, or the insomniacs interested in a thrill to pass the time away with. The former are the better off because this is a film where not being of sober mind can only aid the viewing.

It's bonkers in plotting, Robin Askwith (just prior to his shift into a sex comedy franchise) is a stressed out singer with a pop group. He decides to go for some R&R at a country retreat. He hooks up with Vanessa Shaw on the train journey in, and once they arrive at the retreat they find it's a bizarro world inhabited by mute bikers, lobotomised robots, a malignant dwarf and a mad doctor (Michael Gough) in a wheelchair!

That's pretty much it, not much makes sense, there's a little sexy nudity, a whole host of sequences where the zombies do nothing of interest, some scenes of the dwarf (Skip Martin) mixing potions and puddings, and some cool fake fights between Askwith and chums and the crash helmet bikers. It plods along gleefully to the finale's big reveal and chase/escape sequence, to round it off as car crash cinema. Splendidly bad and joyful in subtexts. 5/10

Not only was Michael Gough in Sleepy Hollow, a film that boasted the tagline "Heads Will Roll," but Gough also stars in this early 70's horror film where decapitation is integral to the plot. So much for two heads are better than one. This film tells the story of some demented doctor that labotimizes young people so as to make them into his puppets. He is in a wheelchair, has a dwarf-servant, a car that has a blade pop out to slice heads off of people, a seemingly neverending supply of killers clad in biker outfits, and a penchant for cracking his metallic-sounding knuckles. Gough uses no restraint at all in his performance as the crazed physician. His rich aristocratic voice adds all the more to his crazed lack of restraint. Gough's performance is larger than life, not necessarily better. The rest of the cast is adequate. Dennis Price, not long before his death, gives a cameo as an effeminate travel agent. The setting in the film is truly nice, and the film has a good flow of action. Some lacking points are the huge holes in the script, the general editing done in the film, and some lacklustre performances in supporting roles. The film is bad, yet one of those bad ones that can be so enjoyable. Should be seen for Gough's over-the-top performance at the very least.