Waste of time

Pretty Good

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

I don't know much about William Girdler (I've seen only one other film that he directed, "Three on a Meathook", which wasn't nearly as entertaining as this one), but it's obvious that he put a lot of heart into "Asylum of Satan". Remember the horror movie you wanted to make when you were a kid? Well, Girdler made it for you. The plot is thin: a beautiful concert pianist (Carla Borelli of "Days of Our Lives" and "Another World") suffers a minor breakdown and ends up at an old, scary-looking asylum in the country, where she hears sinister chanting and has a number of extremely vivid nightmares. What's going on at Dr. Jason Specter's Pleasant Hill Sanitarium? You'll have to find out for yourself! While most of the cast fails to impress, Charles Kissinger (as Dr. Specter) makes a good bargain-basement Vincent Price. Nick Jolley must have known even at the time that he was delivering a stupendously awful performance as the heroine's hot-tempered, houndstooth-clad boyfriend, and a couple of the bit players--Mimi Honce as another patient at the asylum and Jack Peterkin as the physician who reluctantly transfers Borelli to Kissinger's house of horrors for "special treatment"--recite their lines in the corny, mock-dignified cadences of daytime TV, suggesting that Girdler plucked them from the same talent pool as his female lead. (Honce sounds like she's doing a Correctol commercial, and Peterkin reveals, in unintentionally hilarious fashion, a gaping continuity error in the script: he says he warned Borelli a year earlier that she was overworked and, literally in the next breath, splutters that "she's only been under my care a short while!") To a great extent, "Asylum of Satan" works because of its imperfections, not in spite of them--and, believe it or not, is formidably eerie in spots. Watch this film a few times and you'll develop a soft spot in your heart (or your head) for it ;)

That's about all that can be said about this movie... easily one of the worst I've ever seen, and it was completely undeserving of the NC-17 rating it was given (at least the copy i rented)... I've (seriously) seen worse PG movies, with regards to both violence and sex/nudity. The soundtrack was atrocious, the wardrobe was even worse (yes, I know it was low-budget, but they could have done a LITTLE better...), it was just a really really bad movie. I wouldn't recommend spending the 80 minutes it takes to watch it, even if you are able to see it for free... PLEASE don't spend money to rent/buy, believe me, it's not worth it.

Get this title into your mind right now: ASYLUM OF SATAN. Why? Because the 70s was known for tons of low budget movies about the worst of both worlds: crowded asylums and Satanic possession. Before watching the movie trailer, I saw the full-length feature. What you get is absolute nonsense. This, being made a couple of years before THE EXORCIST, helped bring in numerous offerings about the Devil. Here, it's same old, same old. Cheap special effects are the excuse for a rotten-apple horror chiller, with rubber snakes and toy bugs taking toll on two innocent lives. Now, I've just seen the trailer, and I would have been better off giving a donation of twenty dollars to film preservation. An interesting note: the warning label on United's copy of the film is mistakenly misleading. Movies such as ASYLUM OF SATAN are junk food for your head. Just add a television set.

I am ashamed to say I have seen this movie. And more than once. Why? I guess I'm just a sucker for pain. But really, Nick Jolly? Where did they find this guy? For that matter, where did they find any of these people? I'd say "Asylum of Satan" should be burned, but it's just too much fun to make fun of a la MST3K (who, by the way, would have a field day with this stink-burger!).