Hellhole (1985)

Why is this movie so god damn fun? Hellhole has very little going for it as far as production value, acting or even plot. This one has something else. It pulls you in with sheer bad taste and holds you all the way through. I really like this movie!

Busty, Judy Landers plays Susan, a dumb blond who witnesses her mother being killed by a leather clad weirdo with a scarf and mustache. The killers name is as ridiculous as his attire. He goes by the name of Silk. Silk is a sight for sore eyes. He is so over the top in wardrobe that he comes off looking less like a punker and more like a gay biker. Oh Silk, you are my hero. After killing Susan's mother, Silk takes after the titular blond and throws her off of the second story of a construction sight. Believing her to be dead Silk  takes off only to learn that Susan survived with amnesia and was placed in a loony bin for psychiatric examination. From here the film becomes more of a Women In Prison movie and less of a typical thriller.

 Silk disguises himself as a hospital orderly and stalks Susan, waiting for the perfect moment to get her alone. However Susan has much more to worry about and Silk just might be the least of her problems. The great cult icon Mary Woronov (Death Race 2000) plays Dr. Fletcher, a sadistic bitch who uses the patients as guinea pigs for her new drugs. The only problem is that the drugs tend to either kill the subject immediately or put them into a sort of zombie like state. Once the subjects become brain-dead drones they are brought to Hellhole! Hellhole is a second building outside the hospital where Dr. Fletcher practices her sick and twisted medical work. She also has a bunch of guards running around in what looks like NYPD uniforms. One of the goons is played by the biggest chin in cinema, Robert (Maniac Cop) Z'Dar. As always Robert Z'Dar's character is menacing and he seems to really have been enjoying this role.

 Hellhole is jam packed with titties and bush. We are treated to the typical women in prison shower scenes, cat fights and plenty of lesbian sex. The one and only disappointing factor here is that we never get to see Judy Landers in the nude. What a ripoff that is. She even has a shower scene and we don't even get a glimpse at those massive melons. Where we lack in the bare breasted Judy Landers department the film does make up for it with every other actress. Plenty-o-boobs on display here. In one of my favorite sex scenes a blond bimbo sneaks into Silk's room where he is transformed back into homo-punk. Silk takes some dirty pictures of the blond loony while she calls him daddy over and over again. The thing I find so funny about this is that when Silk leaves the doctors ward and enters his living quarters, does he immediately snap on his studded bracelets? Just a silly thought.

 Then there is the very random mud-bath scene in which Silk takes on a threesome in a tub full of mud. Don't worry, the girls still call him daddy. We also have some murder and mayhem. Axes come in handy, shards of broken glass are used, switchblades, billy clubs and giant syringes all act as instruments of death in Hellhole.

This one is a whole lot of fun and recommended for fans of women in prison movies, loony bin movies, or just fans of trash cinema in general. Its funny, its raunchy and  it would never be made today. For these reasons alone it is worth a watch.

Asylum Of Satan (1972)

I remember the first time seeing this loony-bin, devil worshipping cult flick. I was with a bunch of drunken friends and everybody in the room hated it. That is everyone except for me of course. I have always loved asylum movies even though this one barely fits into that category. Now I realize why I liked this one so much. The reason being that it was directed by the great William Girdler.

Girdler has a way of making some very unpolished and many times inadequate films but for some reason his work always appeals to me. Even movies like Day Of The Animals which most would consider unwatchable, seems to drag me in and hold my attention.

I like everything I have seen from the director. Sheba Baby, The awesome blaxploitaion exorcist rip Abby and of course 3 On A Meathook. William Girdler is an important name in the exploitation world as far as I am concerned and while he may not have a body of work as big as Herschell Gordon Lewis : The Godfather Of Gore or David F. Friedmen his brand of art still needs to be seen. I always relate William Girdler to Jeff Lieberman (Squirm, Just Before Dawn, Blue Sunshine) as far as the feel that their films give off and the fact that they just haven't done as many movies as they should have.

Asylum Of Satan is in fact William Girdler's first film and I think it has much more replay value then some of his later stuff like Day Of The Animals.

A woman wakes up in an Asylum. The last thing she remembers was falling asleep at general hospital and now here she is. The asylum is filled with weirdo's, cripples, mutes and a blind woman who some might remember from 3 On A Meathook. The doctor is a weird controlling kook and his right hand man... I mean woman... well his nurse seems to be a man in drag. Nobody will let our main character know why she is being held in the asylum but she starts to put things together when she sees "patients" in white cloaks praying to Satan, hence the brilliant exploitation title Asylum Of Satan.

And speaking of Satan, This movie is one of the few in the genre where Satan is actually present. That's right guys, we actually have the privilege of seeing the devil first hand in Asylum Of Satan.

The film is of course filled with plot holes and it all could have been resolved easily if there was a character with half a brain in their head but lucky for us its not a very long movie. It clocks in at 80 minutes which really is the perfect runtime for a movie like this. If they cut out the filler which comes in the form of driving scenes I suppose the film would have fell somewhere around 70 minutes which is borderline to short. During the 80 min. of Satan-action we are treated to a grizzly severed head, death by poisonous gas, death by spiders which will remind you more of This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse rather then Lucio Fulci's gory-as-hell The Beyond. We also have a weird monster roaming about the asylum. We see a man fall to his death and my personal favorite scene shows a woman in a pool who meets her fate by killer snakes. The snakes bite into the woman's face (complete with gore) and it really makes for a creepy scene. All these murders are of course sacrificial rituals in the name of Satan and when the devil appears lets just say he is not very happy.

This one is for the real exploitation-freaks. Quentin Tarrantino "Grindhouse" kids should stay away. P.S. the grain is real, Yuck!

Bedlam (1946)

I have a bit of a fetish for any movie that takes place in a mental institution or loony-bin. I love em all from big Hollywood movies like One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest to low budget cult films like Don't Look In The Basement. All the best ones (of course) are from the 70's but we get some from each era that stand out. Sam Fuller's Shock Corridor (1963) was a good one. I even like the really crazy ones like the ultra-bad Asylum Of Satan.
Bedlam on the other hand is from the 40's and stars Boris Karloff as a manipulative, sadistic ruler of a insane asylum. A woman tries to expose him for the inhumane mater in which he treats his patients and he has her committed as well. Inside the mental institution she will see first hand how cruel Karloff's character really is. Inmates are whipped, tortured, starved and are forced to sleep on straw. They are not given soap and by no means are they treated medically.

The woman takes it upon herself to reach out to these maniacs and take care of them. This infuriates Karloff and eventually the lunatics band together and get their revenge on Boris (the monster) Karloff. All they needed was some burning torches and a few barking dogs.
Speaking of barking dogs, we get one character who thinks he is a dog. Another thinks he is the worlds greatest judge. Then we have a girl who stands still like a statue throughout the whole film until the end when she goes crazy with a sharp trowel (just like the one used in Night Of The Living Dead). We also get this awesome nut-job who yells out "Split him in two" a lot and a crazy dude shackled up in a cage. This place is nuts. Unfortunately it can't be as cool as the 70's asylum flicks with nudity and foul language. Instead we get great lines like "You call that watery vessel a eye?"! Pretty harsh huh? We also get a Edgar Allan Poe scene where someone is sealed up (alive) behind a brick wall.
Only worth watching for fans of old Karloff flicks and anyone who is really into crazy, nutty, loony, asylum movies.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

Ever want to see Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVitto, Michael Berryman, Christopher Lloyed, Brad Dourif and a Ernest Bourgnine look alike all playing a bunch of nuts locked up in a loony ward? Then One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is for you. There is really not much that you can say about a movie like this, that hasn't been said before but it really is one of the best films ever made. Every character is extremely deep and there isn't anything one dimensional about this film. Every time I see it I like it a little bit more. Cuckoo's nest is a emotional roller coaster from beginning to end. Although the movie is usually remembered as being very sad, I prefer to call it dramatic. One minute you will be laughing and the next you can be wishing death upon who I consider to be the most hated character in 70's cinema, Nurse Ratched (louise Fletcher).  Cuckoo's Nest also allows plenty of room for personal perception on people in general. Who is crazy? Is it those who don't quite fit in with the rest of society? Is it someone who uses their own sense of moral or is it those who do everything by the book? Join the loonies and watch One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. Its always good!