Rayons X

Forgive the pretentious summary, but i thought this film was effective precisely for all the elements other reviewers seemed to criticise. It IS fairly well shot (the dark bits are hard work) and the editing's sharp. With a big bombastic orchestral score and lots of OTT moments, this is a cheesy film with plenty of daft false scares and the like, but it's quite nightmarish too. The clichéd parts are tensely handled. Maybe I'm desensitized to bad cinema at the moment, having consumed plenty of terrible 80s slashers recently, but I thought this was pretty good. Little touches like the horrible old women sharing Barbi Benton's hospital ward, cackling like the witches from Macbeth, added to the absurd bad-dream quality. The murder scenes are well handled, violent and rough but not that splattery.

This film has a similar feel to something like 'Don't Answer The Phone!' or 'The Centerfold Girls', serious in intent and not really 'camp' in any way. It's obviously 'bad cinema', but artfully done.

Early entry into the 80s slasher film craze is surprisingly decent and is one of the few times Golan-Globus Productions ("Invasion U.S.A," "Breakin'," "Revenge of the Ninja," etc.) made a slasher picture. The opening prologue has an unpopular boy named Harold leaving a Valentine's Day card on the doorstep for pretty girl Susan. Susan and her friend find the card, laugh about it, and crumple up the Valentine. Unbeknownst to them, Harold has been watching the whole time. While Susan is getting some cake from the kitchen, she returns to her friend murdered while the creepy Harold stares at her through the window before running off. That's all the set-up you need for this slasher film, which the adult Susan, played by former playmate Barbi Benton, visits the hospital one day for some test results where she is stalked by an adult Harold who is still in love with her. From there, the bodycount continues to grow and just about every male in the hospital might be Harold (it seems like this hospital almost exclusively hired by creepy dudes). Directed and co-written by schlockmeister Boaz Davidson, who's made charming garbage since the 70s like "The Last American Virgin" all the way until today with lame films like "Mega Snake" and "Leatherface" (though he's also produced some classier films like "The Expendables," Rambo 4," and the underrated "Drive Angry"). The plot, characters, and story are pretty non-existent, but Davidson does deliver a good number of suspenseful and creepy hospital themed horrors, particularly an uncomfortable exam of Benton by a creepy doctor that seems to last forever. The film's bloody finale is also quite memorable. There are some slow parts in the second act of the film that drag, but it's not a bad film if you're in the mood for a throwback style slasher that you may have missed. FUN FACT! The film was photographed by Nicholas Josef von Sternberg, son of famed director Josef von Sternberg ("The Blue Angel" "Morocco" "Shanghai Express").

They could have left the killer out of the movie and it would have been just as good! It's so stupid that it's funny. Every scene is bizarre with the half wit doctors and staff. Thankfully none of these things could actually happen in a real hospital. I wasn't expecting much when I watched this and that's exactly what I got. Still, the craziness that occurs is worth a laugh. Watch this when you have nothing else to watch!

This film is one of the most underrated slasher films of the early 80's. It has okay camera work, good acting, fluid direction, recycled plot, etc. Barbi Benton plays Susan Jeremy. She enters a city hospital to get the results of a recent physical. From the moment she enters the hospital, she is approached by weird doctors, old and strange patients, and is forced to undergo one of the most exploitive examinations in movie history (THE DOCTOR TAKES HER BLOOD PRESSURE AFTER PLACING HER HAIR JUST SO YOU HAVE A GOOD LOOK AT BARBI'S NIPPLES). Soon you learn that there is a crazed killer after Susan and he's out for revenge. Though exploitive in some areas, the film has its fair share of good, solid film making. The script is pretty weak and so is the ending but the direction makes up for it. The camera work is okay but just not as fluid as HALLOWEEN II's (which has a similar plot). All in all > 7/10

Hospital Massacre (1982)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Incredibly strange, over-the-top and at times downright crazy slasher about a young woman who sees her best friend murdered after they laugh at a boy who left her a Valentine's Day card. Flash-forward nineteen years and the now woman (Barbi Benton) is at the hospital for a check up when a madman begins killing everyone trying to get to her. HOSPITAL MASSACRE, also known as X-RAY and several other titles, is a pretty poor movie that has so many unintentionally laughable moments that you really can't help but have fun with it. Director Boaz Davidson has said that he didn't know too much about the genre and had never made a slasher so he was pretty much just throwing everything in that he could. This includes all sorts of silly "jump" sequences, which are just downright silly at times and even worse is how everything gets drawn out to the point where you just get tired of watching it. There are simply way too many sequences where scenes keep on going and going when they should have been much shorter. A bit more editing probably would have made the film much more entertaining. There are some things here that are good and this includes the gore. The film contains a pretty large amount of blood especially for a film of this era when most were being cut up by the MPAA. Another memorable thing is the "performance" as the killer because it's just so crazy and over-the-top that you can't help but laugh at times. Still, the weirdness of the character certainly makes you remember him. Benton is decent in the role and manages to show off her Playmate breasts during a rather awkward examination sequence. The rest of the performances are certainly below par but they add to some of the laughs. HOSPITAL MASSACRE is mainly going to appeal to those who enjoy those bad slashers of the decade. You have to leave it to Cannon as they really did deliver a pretty wild little film.