I'm a sucker for an anthology film. More horror for less I guess. This one sounded pretty interesting, with a surprisingly effective wraparound story that is more than just filler.The first segment, "Frozen Fear", is a typical wronged spouse revenge story but with a nice beyond the grave twist. There are some creepy scenes involving animated body parts (creepy AND funny, I should say).The second, "The Weird Tailor, despite having Peter Cushing in it, is weaker than the first. It's mostly goofy and none too scary.The third, "Lucy Comes to Stay", is easily the best segment. It's about a woman with a split personality that manifests itself as another person, and while it's mostly a scenario that's been played out before, this one at least has good fun with it and never pretends the audience isn't in on the twist.The fourth, "Mannikins of Horror", actually evolves out of the wraparound segment in a neat little surprise. An absolutely baffling, but strangely compelling premise is completely undone by a poorly paced ending. Watching that mannikin walk around the hospital was some kind of torture (even the laughs subside long before the scene does).The wraparound keeps your interest and resolves like you expect, however it's effective for what it needs to do. This is a solid anthology film, with the usual ups and downs, but most of them right around the median.

I had the pleasure of seeing this film at The Odeon Cinema in Horsham (with the obelisk outside - anyone remember it?) in February 1973, when I was taken by my brother and sister in law. Asylum played second feature to Steve Spielberg's classic debut Duel. This was the first X film I saw at a cinema; and at the age of 15 (OK, so cinema staff weren't too vigilant in those days - and anyway I was tall enough to pass as an 18 year old!) My fondest memory was the giggle that went up from the audience when Richard Todd finishes assembling Sylvia Syms' neatly wrapped body parts into the newly installed chest freezer before smirking and saying: "Rest in pieces". I also think the diagrams in Peter Cushing's special book which explains how to reanimate a corpse are very well - um - executed - as an o level student of tech drawing at the time I especially liked the diagrams of the suited skeletal corpse with dimension arrows added. Electronics company Toshiba may have borrowed this idea for their mid 1980s advert voiced by Alexei Sayle to the tune of his recent hit single "Hello John, Gotta New Motor?" reworded "Hello Tosh, Got A Toshiba?" Geoffrey Bayldon perhaps lets the film down at the end with his maniacal lunatic laughter - but, like Bloch's Psycho, the whole thing is meant to be a bit of an outrageous giggle and not something to be remotely real or possible.

This is a very interesting anthology that takes you on a tour of twisted minds behind the walls of an asylum. This is not what it seems at first, and has a wild finale! You will not forget watching this shocker any time soon.I wrote the plot synopsis and that has some spoilers by this review does not. What I liked about this is there are many stories and characters that are obvious where others are not. The acting was excellent, the story was intriguing and the setting was creepy. It leaves you wanting more until the very end. Like all suspense movies with good endings, it has a few problems, but there are small and few. If you like psychological thrillers that are a bit different then the norm, do not pass this one by!

"Asylum" (1972) is one of seven horror anthology pictures released by Hammer rival Amicus over an eight-year period. It had been preceded by "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors," "Torture Garden" and The House That Dripped Blood," and would soon be followed by "Tales From the Crypt," "Vault of Horror" and "From Beyond the Grave." Here, in a rather clever framing story, a young doctor applies for a position at the Dunsmoor Insane Asylum and is given a very unusual test for qualification: He must interview the asylum's four inmates (a very exclusive crew, given the size of this pile!) and determine which of them is the residence's ex-head doctor, who had recently gone mad. Thus, the interviews reveal four highly interesting tales. In "Frozen Fear," a woman (beautiful Barbara Parkins) tells of the homicide that she and her lover (Richard Todd) had perpetrated on his wife (yummy Sylvia Syms). This is a suspenseful segment with a good number of jolts. The grisliest tale in the film, it nonetheless contains the picture's most amusing line: "Rest in pieces." Next, in "The Weird Tailor," Barry Morse (unrecognizable here) tells of the weird CUSTOMER he had made a suit for recently. That customer, portrayed by the great Peter Cushing, unfortunately turns out to be short on cash but well loaded with horrible secrets. Some sympathetic characters and a chilling windup really put this segment over. In "Lucy Comes to Stay," a woman (scrumptious Charlotte Rampling) tells of the murders that her best friend Lucy (not-bad-looking Britt Ekland) committed on her brother and nurse. But does Lucy really exist, or is she just a figment of a disturbed young woman's mind? This tale blurs the fine line between fantasy and reality most effectively...until its conclusion, that is. Finally, in "Mannikins of Horror," an inmate (Herbert Lom) tells the young doctor of his experiments in placing his own soul into a foot-high look-alike doll that he has created, leading to some inevitable mayhem. "Asylum" features some very effective direction from Roy Ward Baker, a playful and quite ingenious script from Robert "Psycho" Bloch, an excellent score by Douglas Gamley, and a sicko surprise ending that I doubt anyone will see coming. Thus, I'd say that a person would have to be crazy NOT to check into this "Asylum"!