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1973 - UK Directed By: Antony Balch. Starring: Michael Gough, Robin Askwith, Vanessa Shaw, Dennis Price, Ellen Pollock, Skip Martin, Kurt Christian, Barbara Wendy, Kenneth Benda, Martin Grace and Colin Skeaping.
Aka
The Computer Killers
Doctor Bloodbath
Current Availability
Released on US R1 DVD by Elite Entertainment back in 1999. This single disc release is now OOP. However, Elite are still selling Horror Hospital as part of their British Horror Collection box-set, which also includes Lindsay Shonteff's obscure Curse Of The Voodoo (1965), Jim O'Connolly's gory Tower Of Evil and Norman J. Warren's cheesy intergalactic gorefest Inseminoid (1980). Those who don't want to own the other three films can always purchase the Australian R4 DVD release on the Umbrella label. On a final note the 1993 UK VHS release from Vipco seems to be of interest to die hard fans of this movie in that it contains an alternate, colour tinted take of Jason's flashback sequence not found in any other home video version.
Recommended?
Recommended for fans of seventies era British horror. Although rather flawed Horror Hospital, with its combination of slapstick gore and black humour, is an entertaining pastiche for those with sufficient knowledge of British genre cinema to get the joke.
Review
Throughout the sixties and seventies enterprising young Briton Antony Balch proceeded to carve out a unique and modestly lucrative niche for himself in the field of film distribution. Balch’s modus operandi was to seek out the cheap rights to mainly continental horror and exploitation pictures then release them theatrically in the UK after having re-christened them with catchy English titles. In this regard Balch’s biggest claim to fame was orchestrating the famed 1967 re-editing and re-release of Benjamin Christensen’s 1922 silent classic Häxan (aka - Witchcraft Through The Ages) with all new narration provided by Balch’s good friend and controversial author cum counter culture icon William Burroughs.
Amidst all of this Balch also found time for a directorial career of a sort, mainly comprised of acclaimed shorts featuring and inspired by Burrough’s and a mere two notable feature films, those being the somewhat abstruse Bizarre (aka - Secrets Of Sex) and the comedic 1973 romp Horror Hospital.
Horror Hospital centres on aspiring young songwriter Jason Jones (British sex comedy king Robin Askwith) who having been caught up in a fisticuffs dispute decides to take a break from the music industry. Replying to a magazine advertisement for “Hairy Holidays”, Jason is directed by travel agent Mr Pollack (Price) to the countryside health farm of Dr Storm (Gough).
En route to the place Jason finds himself a rather lovely travelling companion named Judy (Shaw), who turns out to be heading to the health farm too in reply to an invitation from her Aunt Harris (Pollock) who happens to be Dr Storm’s assistant. Upon arriving at the health farm Jason and Judy, whilst not romping in bed together, soon begin to notice that this is no ordinary health farm as bed sheets are soaked with blood, a menacing biker gang and a poison dwarf named Frederick (Martin) prowl the grounds and the other patients all behave like brainwashed zombies.
Jason and Judy soon discover that the crippled, wheelchair-bound Dr Storm is in actual fact a megalomaniacal madman, who having used the “Hairy Holidays” advert to lure in youngsters, then subjects them to his own novel brand of cranial surgery. The evil purpose of this meddling is to turn transforms them into his mindless, brainwashed playthings. Realising that they are destined to become Dr Storms latest test subjects, Jason and Judy desperately attempt to formulate an escape plan.
Taking into account Balch’s prior resume Horror Hospital retrospectively seems an odd film for him to have made. In contrast to the more stately Hammer-esque period horrors that were experiencing their last days in 1973, Horror Hospital is an intentional black comedy no doubt having drawn some commercial inspiration from the success of the embittered mad doctor capers The Abominable Dr Phibes (1970) and its sequel Dr Phibes Rides Again (1972) both of which starred the great Vincent Price.
Balch’s parodying intentions soon make themselves plain as everyone on the villainous side of things plays their roles with a deliberate sense of tongue-in-cheek hamminess delivering their dialogue with a heavily exaggerated, drawn out emphasis. On the same note protagonist such as Dr Storms dwarf henchmen Frederick, the “biker boys” (who resemble the undead bikers in the endearingly barmy 1972 effort Psychomania - a film Horror Hospital shares similarities with) and prune-faced sourpuss Aunt Harris all seem designed to amuse than perturb. Likewise the fact that the other health farm patients act as if lobotomized and bear the same waxy complexions of the zombie extras in a George A. Romero film whilst blood pours from the taps for no real discernible reason suggests that Balch is simply poking fun at the conventions of the horror genre.
If this is the case then the cast seem to be in on the joke and respond with agreeably over the top performances. Veteran star Michael Gough appears to be having a ball as he shamelessly chews the scenery Vincent Price style as the urbane, but sinister Dr Storm. Apparently Balch had specifically requested Gough to try and emulate Bela Lugosi in his performance and even subjected the veteran actor to a screening of Lugosi’s creaky 1940 effort The Devil Bat in order to prepare him for the role. Most pleasantly surprising however, is the performance of the usually unbearable Robin Askwith who is actually highly entertaining in this particular film possibly down to the fact that his cheeky “Jack The Lad” persona fits far better with Balch’s black comedy than it did in either Jim O’Connolly’s Tower Of Evil or Pete Walker’s The Flesh And Blood Show (both 1972) in which Askwith’s presence was – to be brutally honest – an unwelcome irritant. What is more Askwith also strikes up a fine chemistry with the lovely Vanessa Shaw who inexplicably never appeared in another film after this despite displaying considerable horror starlet credentials. Veteran actor and professional alcoholic Dennis Price – fresh from his European adventures with infamous trash director Jess Franco – also contributes an amusingly hammy cameo as sinister travel agent Mr Pollack, who eventually meets with a suitably nasty comeuppance. Sadly Price would be dead by the end of 1973 succumbing to liver cirrhosis after having been in a state of poor health for sometime.
If Horror Hospital is essentially one long extended gag then in the place of a punch line Balch instead pays the build up off with fairly pernicious and graphic scenes of secondary characters getting their heads lopped off. Most of these beheadings are committed courtesy of Dr Storm’s titular “decapitation car” which really has to be seen to be appreciated. These scenes are actually quite comedic in their execution, but are still bloody enough by the standard of their era to make this violent attempt at slapstick prove rather jarring to the casual viewer. To the dedicated British horror fan however, who is capable of understanding the clichés and excesses that Balch is gently lampooning this approach provides plenty of guilty fun. Plenty of unintentional laughter is also to be had at the expense of the atrocious seventies fashions of display, which even include a thoroughly awful rock n’ roll act named Mystic one of whom appears onstage as a dead drag queen. Additionally no amount of beheading or impromptu brain surgery can equal the horror and revulsion of the unkempt shoulder length blonde barnet sported by Askwith, which really is the definition of the term horrific.
On the other hand the humour is subtle and natural enough to still allow Balch to decently attempt to build tension around the fate of his protagonists and therein lies the snag because after all, how can any filmmaker hope to build any escalating sense of suspense or apprehension when no attempt has been made to hide the murderous antics of its villains to begin with? For example we know instantly that Dr Storm and Frederick at least are up to no good, however this isn’t because they act especially villainously but rather because we have seen them murdering two escapees in the pre-credits sequence! It has been stated that Balch and his co-writer Alan Watson started with the idea for the title Horror Hospital and actually built the narrative around the title and in this respect it shows, as Balch and Watson write the film into a corner where it is impossible to wring any real suspense out of their given scenario. Predictably that doesn’t stop Balch from attempting to both have his cake and eat it anyhow, but what he actually achieves is neither horror nor suspense but simply an erratic sense of campy outrageousness. Perhaps this was Balch’s intention to begin with? Either way it unfortunately renders Horror Hospital something of a pointless exercise for those unable to “get the joke” so to speak.
Sadly following the release of Horror Hospital Balch would spurn the chance of following its success and return to distribution before dying prematurely in 1980 at the age of just 42 following a battle with stomach cancer. That Balch departed so early is doubly tragic as with Horror Hospital he achieved a flawed but welcome self-deprecating addition to the cycle of early seventies British horror films, which suggests he could have eventually given the likes of Pete Walker and Norman J. Warren a run for their had he felt inclined to do so. In a certain sense it would be valid to say that Horror Hospital was fairly ahead of its time for 1973, seeing as it parodies the more absurd clichés of the horror genre some years before doing so became more widely fashionable. What is the films trump card however also happens to be, to a degree, its downfall as Horror Hospital eventually comes unstuck due to its reliance for effect on the same clichés it is simultaneously seeking to lampoon. Yet whilst inessential and ultimately rather suspenseless Horror Hospital thanks to its lip-smacking decapitations, game cast and mordant sense of playfully jet black humour is nothing short of a hoot for those able to appreciate its sly, ever so slightly tongue-in-cheek charms.
Also Try… Psychomania (1972, Don Sharp) / The Abominable Dr Phibes / Dr Phibes Rides Again / Satan’s Slave / Tower Of Evil / The Flesh And Blood Show /Bloodbath At The House Of Death.
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