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Doom Asylum is a movie which was shot in an around an abandoned insane asylum, and that certainly adds weight to the proceedings which begin with a horrendous moment early on where bad acting can kill you easily!
You’ll also be soon questioning how come a student intern looks like he’s in his 40s, but anyhoo, 10 years on from the opening events surrounding Mitch and Judy, and the legacy lives on about a man who stalks an insane asylum, bumping people off with autopsy tools. So, why not have a group of 20-year-olds-and-up-pretending-to-be-teenagers going over there to investigate?
The only famous one amongst them is Kristin Davis, but far more scary tales were witnessed in both Sex And The City movies. If you’re still alive after those monstrosities, and if you still can’t get over the moment in Melrose Place, as Brooke, when she smiled and said to Billy (Andrew Shue), “Billy, I’m ovulating!” – a moment even more grim than smacking her head on the side of the pool and ending up brown bread – here, there’s gore aplenty with prosthetic effects.
What seems potentially more frightening is that the late Judy’s daughter, Kiki, wants to call her boyfriend “Mom”. ‘Daddy’ would be weird enough in most cases, but “Mom”? Oh well, everyone has their kinks, I guess. It’s the same actress in both female roles, which makes me think that for continuity, surely a gap of 20 years would be more realistic, but then again… realism in an ’80s slasher movie?
PS. The intern is producer Steve Menkin, but I haven’t been able to find out what his age was at the time… or even, now.
In some cases, I’ve seen better murders in an ’80s slasher flick, but there are some fantastic ones (particularly one around 25 minutes in), but what’s here makes for a watchable 80 minutes, if only for the outfits of goth group Tina and the Tots, particularly their lead, played by Ruth Collins. She’s everything I wanted from an older woman back in the day 😉
Sometimes, the potential deaths are so bad, such as one where a man’s hanging off a building, but then, you can clearly see his shirt is clipped to the building! Still, as director of photography Larry Revene states in the extras, he can’t remember how they got to the position where the man was hanging off the building. I assumed he was a stuntman, but it looks like it was just thought up on the fly, so he could seriously have fallen and done himself a permanent!
Either way, the characters in this are often so incredibly mor -onic that when the baddie approaches them, they just stand there and take it rather than fight back. I learned during the first extra on this disc that the reason this happened is because it’s too expensive to film someone running away. That has clearly since changed as cameras are a lot cheaper and more portable, not to mention how you can record on your own mobile.
The film is presented in… well, I’ll come to that, but it’s in 1080p high definition, and we do get a great 1080p image, although there’s a bit of a hazy effect on the picture which comes about from the original print so my score will reflect that, even though it is as good as it’s going to get.
The disc gives options to watch this in 16:9 or 4:3, and when I did the former, a caption states that this version “presents the film framed approximately as intended by Director of Photography Larry Revene, who composed the shots with theatrical exhibition in mind. However, due to the original aspect ratio of the video-generated opening titles, and black and white movie inserts being in 1.33:1, these sections are presented in pillarboxed format.”
The audio is a mono soundtrack, and there are no problems with it, as it’s either dialogue or screaming.
The extras feature a number of interviews, as you’d expect from an Arrow release:
- Tina’s Terror (17:56): A new interview with my favourite from the film, Ruth Collins, and she tells how she made several films like this at the time, and how you’d go from set to set, sometimes sleeping in the car overnight, at the location where you’ll work the next day!
- Movie Madhouse (19:00): This one is with director of photography Larry Revene. As with Ms Collins, he also talks about how some scenes were just made up on the fly, and since they didn’t have the budget for a set of rails for a dolly camera shot (so you can do a tracking shot of the characters), the managed the same thing at one point by putting a camera on a wheelchair and rolling that back, but with a couple of apple boxes to lift up the camera, so it ‘sees’ at eye level.
- Morgues and Mayhem (17:38): Special make-up effects creator Vincent J Guastini, including how he’s mortified about a particular line of blood showing up very obviously behind the actor’s head… except I never noticed at the time when watching the film, so he has nothing to worry about 🙂
- Archive Interviews (10:56): recorded back in the day with executive producer Alexander W Kogan Jr, director Richard Friedman and production manager Bill Tasgal.
- Stills Gallery (3:05): 30 images, which are mostly on-set pictures but also some posters, too.
- Audio Commentaries: Two here. One from screenwriter Rick Marx, and one from The Hysteria Continues.
The menu mixes clips from the film with a good portion of a decent cover version of The Animals’ House of the Rising Sun. I couldn’t find out who performed this as it’s not in the credits, nor did Shazam pick it up. Judging by other reviews, everyone else hates it… the mad people!
I received just a check disc for this movie, but the full package also contains reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Justin Osbourne, and a fully-illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing by Amanda Reyes.
Doom Asylum Special is out now on Blu-ray.
|
FILM PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS |
6 8 7 5 |
| OVERALL | 6.5 |
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 79 mins
Year: 1987
Distributor: Arrow Films
Released: July 16th 2018
Chapters: 12
Cat.no: FCD1771
Picture: 1080p High Definition
Sound: Mono – DTS-HD 1.0 Master Audio, DTS-HD 1.0 Master Audio
Languages: English
Subtitles: English
Widescreen: 1.85:1 (35 mm)
Disc Format: BD50
Director: Richard Friedman
Producer: Steve Menkin
Screenplay: Rick Marx
Story: Richard Friedman, Rick Marx and Steve Menkin
Music: Dave Erlanger and Jonathan Stuart
Cast:
Judy LaRue / Kiki LaRue: Patty Mullen
Tina: Ruth Collins
Jane: Kristin Davis
Mike: William Hay
Dennis: Kenny L Price
Darnell: Harrison White
Godiva: Dawn Alvan
Rapunzel: Farin
Mitch Hansen: Michael Rogen
Medical Examiner: Harvey Keith
Assistant Medical Examiner: Steve Menkin
Fake Shemp: Paul Giorgi
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.