In one foolish gore scene in Hell Asylum (2002), a pointy-cowled demon-psycho pulls red strings of yarn or macaroni out of a victim's mouth.

Later the same red strings are viewed resting on a victim's tummy while two pointy-cowled demon-psychos pretend to eat the strings.

This has the look of 1970s drive-in shlock & the only give-away that it's a newer film is the idea of a "reality show" being produced for television.

The reality show is staged in an allegedly haunted building formerly used as a mental asylum. Hidden cameras are everywhere.

The five gorgeous babes chosen for the show wear babe-cams rather like National Geographic's animal-cams. Said babes are turned loose in a house with lots of fake happenings sprung on the girls one by one. Last one to get scared & beg to be let out wins a million dollars.

However, & who coulda guessed it, the asylum really is haunted by two psycho demons in stupid black pointy cowls.

And no matter how many times the women beg to be let out of the haunted asylum, ain't gonna happen.

The majority of the male characters (the reality show's director & technical crew) are summarily slain as quickly as possible, then the girls are picked off one by one, slowly & brutally with thin reasons provided for semi-nudity.

Only one gore gag struck me as imaginative or entertainingly gross, when the gothiest of the girls breaks both legs & is laying all akimbo at the foot of the stairs at absurdly busted up angles.

She lives & suffers a long time & begs periodically to be killed as the rest of the film goes on around her. If the anyone else in the cast had put half as much "belief" into their unbelievable characters Hell Asylum might have been half good instead of all bad.

It never manages to raise itself to level of crap, but whoever likes to see scream queens tormented, bloodied, & killed may find this one satisfactory. It tacks a cynical joke onto the tail-end, which doesn't improve any of it.

Hell Asylum might also be recommendable to anyone whose guilty pleasures include really terrible 1970s slasher films, as the resemblance might almost seem genius had it been intentional.

Continue to more loony bin tales:
Madhouse (2004) and Asylum Night (2004)

copyright © by Paghat the Ratgirl