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.

Wow! Where to begin?

Hospital Massacre seems like one of those movies that an alien from a different planet would make about humans. So many characters behave in such ridiculously bizarre ways that no one seems like a real person. It's probably best to turn off your mind before going into this one and just rolling with it.

The story itself might make zero sense, but it seems as if it's just a coat hanger to hang a series of gory, imaginative death scenes on and those scenes are certainly memorable. It's never terribly gory (in fact, it tends to cut away before it shows too much most of the time), but the scenes themselves are unlike anything you've ever seen. Watch a nurse turn a corner and come face to face with the killer at the end of the hall who's walking towards her with a sheet stretched out in front of him. Like most of the film, it's hard to tell if this is dreamlike and creepy or incredibly hilarious.

Much like the same year's Halloween II, there are only a handful of patients in this entire hospital and the people in charge must be trying to save money on electricity, because there are so many dark corners and hallways everywhere.

Barbi Benton isn't half bad in her meager role which just consists of her looking scared, angry, or hysterical. At least when she isn't being subjected to hysterically gratuitous nude examination scenes.

I'm not sure what Hospital Massacre was intending to be, but it sure turned out fun.

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" is a pretty low aiming shot in the mid 1980's slasher stakes, and it has so many crappy moments in it that you should have a good laugh while watching it. Basically, glamour model Barbi Benton plays Susan Jeremy, a woman who pops into hospital for some routine test results only to find that she can't get out again. This is because a maniac with a serious grudge against her is blocking all escape routes and won't stop until he gets what he wants!

Now let me say that the film isn't all bad, but what really doesn't work is the hilarious implausibility of the "situation" that Susan finds herself in. As soon as the killer knows she is in the hospital, he plants some bogus test results in her file, and from this point onwards all the other hospital staff treat Susan like a dangerous and/or mentally deranged powder keg who must be detained at all costs. Thus we see a perfectly normal woman forced into straps and restraints, slammed into locked wards, subjected to humiliating examinations and, of course, in between all that she's being pursued by a masked killer. Now the film makes quite good use of the hospital location for some good murders, but this supposed inescapability I just did not swallow. Anyway, for even more fun, let me list a few of the really outrageous goofs this film thinks it can get away with. Susan actually leaves her boyfriend in the car waiting while she pops into the hospital for "a few minutes". Amazingly, several hours go by and darkness falls before he even comes to look for her! Next watch out for a side-splitting scene when Susan hides behind a portable screen on wheels just inches away from the killer. Watch as she drops a lighter on the floor and retrieves it with her foot while the killer stares right at the screen without out seeing anything. The screen even has about 12" of space below it where Susan's legs can clearly be seen. Oh sorry she also pulls the material aside to peer through the screen at him, and he doesn't see that either. Next watch for the notorious examination scene where Susan is stripped naked and felt up all over by a doctor in a supposedly sinister fashion. NO WAY would this ever be tolerated or handled in such a sleazy manner in a real hospital. Plus, save your breath for the scene in which a fleeing Susan bursts into a room full of patients in traction, who all spring to life and writhe their tethered, bandaged bodies around like it's a scene from some kind of purgatory. Why? I don't know. There's no reason at all for this shot, expect to put something bizarre to look at into the running time.

I'll say this though, Barbi Benton is not bad in the role of Susan. She screams well enough and is attractive to look at throughout. Shame that the script gives her so many stupid, dumb things to do and never once is there a moment when she decides to just leave the building (it's not a prison, fer crying out loud).

Luckily the murders are pretty good fun and the general looniness of the whole thing definitely makes it fun. Just forget logic and you'll enjoy it.

The movie starts off with a young boy who obviously has a crush on this girl. When he sends her a valentine card, she laughs at it. This must have made the boy go psycho. Cut to the present. The girl is now a grown woman, who is going to get a routine check up at her hospital. The killer shows up at the hospital and begins to methodically slice and dice the hospital staff to get to the woman. This movie has some great suspense and atmosphere. The acting was a little below average, but the movie is too good to be missed.