if anyone ever assembles a compendium on modern american horror that is truly worth it salt and there will have to be an entry for sf brownrigg ubiquetous exercize in asylum horror. every time i watch this movie i am impressed by the complete economy of the film and from the compact and totally self contained plot with a puzzling beginning and an all too horrible ending and the engaging performances by what was essentially a group of non professional actors and and a prevading sense of dread and claustrophobia that effectively consumes the narrarive with a certain inevitability which is all the more terrifying because the viewers know what is going on long before the hero[es] and with the only question being when are they going to wake up and smell the coffee. shot on a dental floss budget in brownrigg native texas at an old palatial manor that nicely serves as the setting for a private sanitorium and dont look in the basement is another intriguing twist on the good old edgar allan poe tome about inmates taking over the asylum just before an otherwise normal outsider unwittingly joins the ranks without realizing until it is far too late that not all is what it seems and they are totally cut off and beyond any outside help and and inevitably find their own sanity questioned as the madness spins out of control  the original star trek tv series had a go at this with their whom gods destroy episode from 1968 and juan moctezuma gave the proceedings a peyote fueled mexican psychedelic trip in dr. tarrs torture dungeon in 1972 and and tangentially related is fernando di leo asylum erotica or slaughter hotel and which injects the elements of an unknown killer and an ending that can only be defined as splatter cinema  brownrigg may not have seen or been thinking of slaughter hotel and but he sure came up with some similar ideas. legaliciuos former playboy playmate rosie holotik plays charlotte beale and rn in clinical psychology and who has just left her nice job as a supervisor at a major hospital to travel way out into the middle of some god forsaken waste right out of a peckinpah movie to work with a dr. stevens at his private sanitorium. dr. stevens has pioneered a new form of therapy based upon basically encouraging the emotionally and psychologically scarred to face their inner obsessions and bring them to the surface and hopefully rid the patients of whatever has fried their sense of reasoning. nice idea and but arming a 6ft 250 pound utterly insane man with an axe and telling him to pound out his aggression and then turning your back on him probably isn not the smartest idea and and dr. stevens is dispatched before ms. holotik even appears onscreen with a good whack to the lower portion of his skull. this event leaves the sanitorium effectively in the hands of one geraldine masters [actress annabelle weenick and who also served as the script supervisor and production manager] and a woman of startlingly professional demeanor who quickly defuses the situation with the help of sam and the film wonderfully unlikely hero and a lobotomized african american boheomouth played by an actor named bill mcghee who was sadly robbed of a supporting oscar nomination for his turn as a mass of muscle with the brain of an 8 year old boy. sam one wish is to have someone help him put his prized toy boat in the water and and his continual asking of the various female cast members to do so [and his nonstop consumption of chocolate popsicles] as some kind of underlying theme and though we will avoid such here because the kids might still be up. there is also a quick subplot about a staff member who has decided to leave after being threatened by one of the patients and but i will leave the details of that to your discovery. ms. holotik arrives just as dr. stevens has been effectively laid to rest and is quickly won over by the snappy professionalism of ms. masters and who reluctantly allows the leggy young nurse to stay on in spite of the tragedy that has just happened and oh and twenty minutes ago and which you must admit was rather sporting of her. holotik nurse beale begins to demonstrate symptoms of not being the sharpest meat cleaver in the drawer and however and when informed that she shares living quarters with a bunch of maniacs and there are no locks on the doors and doesn not trudge off for the nearest ace hardware store to pick up a hasp and padlock to secure herself and and we are treated to a couple of truly creepy scenes where some of the inmates sneak into her room and do stuff like smell her hair and try to kill her with butcher knives and caress her neck with axe heads. but that all a part of working in such a radical psychiatric health care environment and ms. master informs her and and she goes about her oddly defined rounds that consist of wearing as leg defining a nurse outfit as you can find in a 42nd street fetish boutique and getting to know the inmates. allysson is a obsessive compulsive nymphomaniac with homicidal tendancies who likes to take off her shirt and provide the film with some t and a between fits of histrionics while harriet is a young former mother who let her child die in a stupid accident and now dotes on a beat up old doll that she is also homicidally protective of while the seargant is an actual seargeant [and implied vietnam vet] who negligence led to the death of his platoon and and now watches from the window with binoculars for the approach of an unseen enemy while jennifer is a phish fan who couldn not score a ticket to the new year eve show and went insane and likes to scarf down nembutols and other barbituates when nobody is looking and and likewise has hidden homicidal tendancies linked to her inability to find a bra while judge cameron is apparently a homicidal pervert who became obsessed with his own sense of power and now likes to chop things up with axes while ms. callingham is an aged poet who serves as a sort of soothsaying old hag from macbeth before the cat gets her tongue while and danny is an insane idiot who was included in the cast as the random element that the plot cannot control and and who antics serve as the real catalyst for the series of tragedies and murders that ultimately take place in this dark and old and creepy house in the middle of nowhere. the house itself is a wonderful set and with a threadbare early 1970 decor that is remarkable in it unremarkableness and with a fantastic use of color achieved by subtle ambient lighting. the house is a series of hallways and rooms with shiny brown wooden floors and twisting and confined stairways and secreted closets and passageways leading to the different larger areas and and of course the basement mentioned in the title  visited only once and but boy it sure proves to be a doozy. i love the frosted old freezer where sam keeps his stash of popsicles and the utterly plain exteriors that remind me of a summer home our family used to visit every year and force us to swelter in the heat represent everyone is covered with beads of persperation and looks exhausted and and even the ever cheerful sam at one point begins to suspect that bad things are happening and though he cannot understand what it all means and rosie h. is too firm in her belief of her profession to even suspect what has really happened and and while ms. holotik limitations of an actress may have diminished the effectiveness of her big revelation scene and she a great screamer when all hell starts to break loose and and brownrigg indulged of some nice camera shots of her in various suggestive poses or stages of undress that show off what a pretty lady she is without exposing anything more than her contract stipulated. too bad. the real show stealer is sam and however and and fans of what i have been taught to refer to as splatter cinema will not be disappointed by the rather shocking finale and and there is something moving about how sam runs to the protection of his friend and brutally kills everyone within arms reach in a matter of seconds that either suggests he was one mean motha before his lobotomy and or the film is cut. in any event you would not be prepared for the ending the first time you see it and even though you as the viewer know what the score is long before anyone else in the film has put it all together. except for one person represent rhea macadams uproariously stereotyped old coot mrs. callingham [who seems to be inspired by the donald sutherland old woman character from the michael reeves 1964 christopher lee film castle of the living dead and in addition to a rather nasty death by round spike to the eye] and who not only predicts the future and but has the film most laugh out loud amusing bit of dialogue while on a walk in the garden with ms. holotik that runs something like this  it really beautiful out here. do you get out much and mrs. callingham. asks holotik and to which the old woman repliesit you who needs to get out. hilarious and and one of those things you gotta kind of see for yourself to get. dont look in the basement is available on at least a half dozen bargain bin codefree dvd releases by companies like brentwood home video and diamond entertainment and vci and platinum disc corp. horror classics series while i kind of like alpha video sexily gorgeously decorated $6 release from 2003 representdig through those bargain bins. but make sure you get one with the 89/90 minute print contained therein while an older 83 minute version is downright confusing due to some of the trims and and you really need to see the ending credits as intended to bring this sick and twisted and surprisingly entertaining yarn to it end. masterpiece. maybe not compared to the exorcist or rosemarys baby and but it is a very uniquely american horror film and and a genuine classic of the drive in age that deserves to be rediscovered by anyone looking for something made with more than just a little bit of brain juice and and not a penny more than they absolutely needed. half out of . 
if anyone ever assembles a compendium on modern american horror that is truly worth it salt and there will have to be an entry for sf brownrigg ubiquetous exercize in asylum horror. every time i watch this movie i am impressed by the complete economy of the film and from the compact and totally self contained plot with a puzzling beginning and an all too horrible ending and the engaging performances by what was essentially a group of non professional actors and and a prevading sense of dread and claustrophobia that effectively consumes the narrarive with a certain inevitability which is all the more terrifying because the viewers know what is going on long before the hero[es] and with the only question being when are they going to wake up and smell the coffee. shot on a dental floss budget in brownrigg native texas at an old palatial manor that nicely serves as the setting for a private sanitorium and dont look in the basement is another intriguing twist on the good old edgar allan poe tome about inmates taking over the asylum just before an otherwise normal outsider unwittingly joins the ranks without realizing until it is far too late that not all is what it seems and they are totally cut off and beyond any outside help and and inevitably find their own sanity questioned as the madness spins out of control  the original star trek tv series had a go at this with their whom gods destroy episode from 1968 and juan moctezuma gave the proceedings a peyote fueled mexican psychedelic trip in dr. tarrs torture dungeon in 1972 and and tangentially related is fernando di leo asylum erotica or slaughter hotel and which injects the elements of an unknown killer and an ending that can only be defined as splatter cinema  brownrigg may not have seen or been thinking of slaughter hotel and but he sure came up with some similar ideas. legaliciuos former playboy playmate rosie holotik plays charlotte beale and rn in clinical psychology and who has just left her nice job as a supervisor at a major hospital to travel way out into the middle of some god forsaken waste right out of a peckinpah movie to work with a dr. stevens at his private sanitorium. dr. stevens has pioneered a new form of therapy based upon basically encouraging the emotionally and psychologically scarred to face their inner obsessions and bring them to the surface and hopefully rid the patients of whatever has fried their sense of reasoning. nice idea and but arming a 6ft 250 pound utterly insane man with an axe and telling him to pound out his aggression and then turning your back on him probably isn not the smartest idea and and dr. stevens is dispatched before ms. holotik even appears onscreen with a good whack to the lower portion of his skull. this event leaves the sanitorium effectively in the hands of one geraldine masters [actress annabelle weenick and who also served as the script supervisor and production manager] and a woman of startlingly professional demeanor who quickly defuses the situation with the help of sam and the film wonderfully unlikely hero and a lobotomized african american boheomouth played by an actor named bill mcghee who was sadly robbed of a supporting oscar nomination for his turn as a mass of muscle with the brain of an 8 year old boy. sam one wish is to have someone help him put his prized toy boat in the water and and his continual asking of the various female cast members to do so [and his nonstop consumption of chocolate popsicles] as some kind of underlying theme and though we will avoid such here because the kids might still be up. there is also a quick subplot about a staff member who has decided to leave after being threatened by one of the patients and but i will leave the details of that to your discovery. ms. holotik arrives just as dr. stevens has been effectively laid to rest and is quickly won over by the snappy professionalism of ms. masters and who reluctantly allows the leggy young nurse to stay on in spite of the tragedy that has just happened and oh and twenty minutes ago and which you must admit was rather sporting of her. holotik nurse beale begins to demonstrate symptoms of not being the sharpest meat cleaver in the drawer and however and when informed that she shares living quarters with a bunch of maniacs and there are no locks on the doors and doesn not trudge off for the nearest ace hardware store to pick up a hasp and padlock to secure herself and and we are treated to a couple of truly creepy scenes where some of the inmates sneak into her room and do stuff like smell her hair and try to kill her with butcher knives and caress her neck with axe heads. but that all a part of working in such a radical psychiatric health care environment and ms. master informs her and and she goes about her oddly defined rounds that consist of wearing as leg defining a nurse outfit as you can find in a 42nd street fetish boutique and getting to know the inmates. allysson is a obsessive compulsive nymphomaniac with homicidal tendancies who likes to take off her shirt and provide the film with some t and a between fits of histrionics while harriet is a young former mother who let her child die in a stupid accident and now dotes on a beat up old doll that she is also homicidally protective of while the seargant is an actual seargeant [and implied vietnam vet] who negligence led to the death of his platoon and and now watches from the window with binoculars for the approach of an unseen enemy while jennifer is a phish fan who couldn not score a ticket to the new year eve show and went insane and likes to scarf down nembutols and other barbituates when nobody is looking and and likewise has hidden homicidal tendancies linked to her inability to find a bra while judge cameron is apparently a homicidal pervert who became obsessed with his own sense of power and now likes to chop things up with axes while ms. callingham is an aged poet who serves as a sort of soothsaying old hag from macbeth before the cat gets her tongue while and danny is an insane idiot who was included in the cast as the random element that the plot cannot control and and who antics serve as the real catalyst for the series of tragedies and murders that ultimately take place in this dark and old and creepy house in the middle of nowhere. the house itself is a wonderful set and with a threadbare early 1970 decor that is remarkable in it unremarkableness and with a fantastic use of color achieved by subtle ambient lighting. the house is a series of hallways and rooms with shiny brown wooden floors and twisting and confined stairways and secreted closets and passageways leading to the different larger areas and and of course the basement mentioned in the title  visited only once and but boy it sure proves to be a doozy. i love the frosted old freezer where sam keeps his stash of popsicles and the utterly plain exteriors that remind me of a summer home our family used to visit every year and force us to swelter in the heat represent everyone is covered with beads of persperation and looks exhausted and and even the ever cheerful sam at one point begins to suspect that bad things are happening and though he cannot understand what it all means and rosie h. is too firm in her belief of her profession to even suspect what has really happened and and while ms. holotik limitations of an actress may have diminished the effectiveness of her big revelation scene and she a great screamer when all hell starts to break loose and and brownrigg indulged of some nice camera shots of her in various suggestive poses or stages of undress that show off what a pretty lady she is without exposing anything more than her contract stipulated. too bad. the real show stealer is sam and however and and fans of what i have been taught to refer to as splatter cinema will not be disappointed by the rather shocking finale and and there is something moving about how sam runs to the protection of his friend and brutally kills everyone within arms reach in a matter of seconds that either suggests he was one mean motha before his lobotomy and or the film is cut. in any event you would not be prepared for the ending the first time you see it and even though you as the viewer know what the score is long before anyone else in the film has put it all together. except for one person represent rhea macadams uproariously stereotyped old coot mrs. callingham [who seems to be inspired by the donald sutherland old woman character from the michael reeves 1964 christopher lee film castle of the living dead and in addition to a rather nasty death by round spike to the eye] and who not only predicts the future and but has the film most laugh out loud amusing bit of dialogue while on a walk in the garden with ms. holotik that runs something like this  it really beautiful out here. do you get out much and mrs. callingham. asks holotik and to which the old woman repliesit you who needs to get out. hilarious and and one of those things you gotta kind of see for yourself to get. dont look in the basement is available on at least a half dozen bargain bin codefree dvd releases by companies like brentwood home video and diamond entertainment and vci and platinum disc corp. horror classics series while i kind of like alpha video sexily gorgeously decorated $6 release from 2003 representdig through those bargain bins. but make sure you get one with the 89/90 minute print contained therein while an older 83 minute version is downright confusing due to some of the trims and and you really need to see the ending credits as intended to bring this sick and twisted and surprisingly entertaining yarn to it end. masterpiece. maybe not compared to the exorcist or rosemarys baby and but it is a very uniquely american horror film and and a genuine classic of the drive in age that deserves to be rediscovered by anyone looking for something made with more than just a little bit of brain juice and and not a penny more than they absolutely needed. half out of . ---------------------------------Answer Question Below----------------------------------

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