Writer-director James Seale exhibits a fondness for nonstop plot twists that makes ASYLUM a lively rehash of slasher pic cliches. Unfortunately, this movie clumsily circles the perimeter of camp, and muddies its potential as an intricate mystery.
Having witnessed the suicide of his father many years ago, traumatized private eye Nick Tordone (Robert Patrick) has been in therapy with Dr. Frank Myers (Peter Brown) since childhood. When Myers's sudden death at Fallbrook State Mental Hospital is ruled a suicide, a suspicious Nick goes
undercover as a charity patient.
Run by eccentric genius Dr. Bellcheck (Henry Gibson), Fallbrook has been beset by a rash of patient disappearances. The murderer may be Sullivan Rane (Malcolm McDowell), a recently escaped serial killer. Nick surreptitiously gathers info from two patients--Tommy (Jason Schombing), who fancies
himself a comic book hero, and "The Surgeon," actually the missing lunatic Rane in disguise. Nick soon discovers that Myers's death is similar to that of the vanished-presumed dead patients; he also finds air vents that provide easy access for a killer and an abandoned building that is off limits
to the general population.
When the Surgeon admits he is Rane, Nick mistakenly presumes he is the patient-snuffer. But Rane is killed by an unseen assassin as Nick pursues him through the air vents. Inside the abandoned building, Nick is overpowered by Dr. Bellcheck's henchman Simmons (Kevin Anthony Cole). It is Dr.
Bellcheck who has been "kidnapping" his own patients to use as guinea pigs for a suicide-inducing drug; he killed Dr. Myers when he became suspicious about the disappearances. (Bellcheck had been using cannibalistic Rane to dispose of the corpses). After Bellcheck shoots the now-expendable
Simmons, Nick kicks Bellcheck into needles containing a lethal dose of his own drug.
While the subject of an investigator posing as a madman has been handled with more finesse, particularly in the harrowing SHOCK CORRIDOR (1963, whose star Peter Breck appears here as Dr Myers), ASYLUM is nevertheless a fairly effective retread of the feigned-madness motif. Gruesome, but reasonably
suspenseful, ASYLUM scarily travels those madhouse vents where deranged Bellcheck spirits away his helpless patients.
ASYLUM would be easier to recommend had it stuck to chills. Instead, it falls victim to tiresome SNAKE PIT stereotypes. And it wastes time with tired comic relief provided by lovable loony Tommy, whose crimefighting alter ego, Captain Destructo, becomes Nick's sleuthing partner. ASYLUM also spends
too much energy developing Rane as a red herring. (Horror buffs will deduce the identity of the real killer from Henry Gibson's special billing.) As hard as it labors to mislead the audience, ASYLUM won't fool anyone. (Graphic violence, extreme profanity, sexual situations, adult situations.) leave a comment
