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Asylum/The
House That
Dripped Blood
Amicus unleashed
Release 29 July
Director Roy Ward Baker/Peter Duffell
Cast Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Jon
Pertwee, Charlotte Rampling, Ingrid Pitt
Distributor Second Sight Films
Certificate 15
Format
There’s a wonderful vintage
documentary on Second Sight’s Asylum
Blu-ray focused on the production of
Amicus’ latest horror anthology. As
producer Milton Subotsky explains
his methods of getting films made
with high quality actors on the lowest
possible budgets, talent from in front and behind
the camera discuss its pros and cons. That blend
of thriftiness and genuinely impressive casts
is possibly the most enduring part of Amicus’
legacy and it’s most evident in their love of an
anthology film.
Asylum is comfortably the better of the two,
as an idealistic young doctor arrives at an
institution run by Patrick Magee and is promptly
sent around the most dangerous patients to
hear their stories. A tailor recounts how he was
commissioned by a mysterious gentleman (Peter
Cushing) to make a suit only after midnight, a
young woman describes how her lover murdered
his wife only to face surprising consequences,
and Charlotte Rampling pops up as a girl with
a wicked imaginary friend (Britt Ekland). The
best of the bunch is the closer, as Herbert Lom’s
mannequins have a life of their own...
The House That Dripped Blood is rather more
Captain Marvel
The super human league
Release Out now
Directors Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck
Cast Brie Larson, Samuel L Jackson,
Ben Mendelsohn, Lashana Lynch, Jude Law
Distributor Walt Disney Home Entertainment
Certificate 12
Format t
We join the MCU’s newest hero in
1995 on the planet of Hala, the home
of Starforce, the super group that the
warrior known as Vers serves. DuringHerbert Lom
was booked for
one day for Asylum
and finished his role in
half that time.of an endurance test, despite another excellent
cast, with a detective hearing stories from a
local copper about how anyone who stays in the
titular home faces a grisly end. The ‘Waxworks’
segment, in which Peter Cushing discovers
the nightmarish secret of the local museum,
is genuinely creepy in places, and there’s a lot
of fun to be had in the knowingly campy ‘The
Cloak’, with Jon Pertwee hamming it up as an
arrogant horror movie star who accidentally
buys a real vampire’s cloak.
However, whereas Asylum moves briskly
at a tight 88 minutes, The House definitely
drags its feet through stories that take far
too long to get where they are going and it
doesn’t have the stand-out needed to make it
particularly memorable.
Still, both films have been beautifully
restored, and come with commentaries,
interviews and vintage featurettes, while
Asylum has the added bonus of splatterpunk
author David J Schow paying tribute to writer
Robert Bloch.
Jonathan Hatfull
a rescue mission involving alien shapeshifters
known as Skrulls, Vers finds herself in the
USA before she is tracked down by a younger,
two-eyed version of Nick Fury, and begins to
remember key events from her hazy past.
Though Captain Marvel’s story is not as
dramatic or pivotal as other MCU plots, the film
does a good job of setting up the character who
could end up becoming the next face of the
franchise and proves that Brie Larson was the
right choice. Charming, playful and hardcore,
Carol Danvers is a super-powered hero beyond
belief while also being extremely human.
Poppy-Jay Palmer
REVIEWS HOME FILM
The Prodigy
That’s my boy
Release Out now
Director Nicholas McCarthy
Cast Taylor Schilling, Jackson Robert
Scott, Peter Mooney, Colm Feore
Distributor Vertigo Releasing
Certificate 15
FormatHaving impressed with
The Pact and At The Devil’s Door,
director Nicholas McCarthy goes
the old bad seed route with his
latest horror, but the result suffers from a
disappointing lack of trust in the audience.
By opening with the killing of a serial killer
intercut with Sarah Blume (Taylor Schilling)
giving birth to her son, we’re never in any
doubt as to what’s going on with Miles when
he grows into a creepy little boy (Jackson
Robert Scott). We’re too many steps ahead as
the plot goes through the expected motions.
Which is a shame as the cold atmosphere
works nicely and the performances are
strong. Schilling gives a committed turn as
a mother trying to find an explanation that
doesn’t involve her son being possessed by a
monster, and Scott (George from IT) is really
quite unnerving as Miles.
It’s dour and downbeat and its willingness
to go to the darkest possible places does pack
a punch, especially in the final act, but The
Prodigy can’t shake our sense that we’ve seen
this all before in a more interesting package.
Jonathan Hatfull