Flesh and Blood- Horror Hospital

The Flesh and Blood Show and Horror Hospital – The Changing of the Horror Guard. By Brian Kirst Famed horror director Pete Walker (Frightmare , House of Whipcord ) notes that in the early 1970’s the face of horror was beginning to change. People were no longer thrilled by the subtleties of the early Corman films and the monsters of Hammer horror. The public demanded more flesh and blood, so it is appropriate that Walker’s 1972 offering was called The Flesh and Blood Show . Indeed, The Flesh and Blood Show and other early 1970’s offerings like Horror Hospital can be seen in a defining light. They are the middle ground between the more quietly Gothic horrors and the full-on gore explosions of the present day. In an interview feature on the The Flesh and Blood Show disc, Walker seems to lament the fact that he had to add copious nudity and blood shots to the picture to keep modern audiences entertained. Truthfully, though, these are the most interesting aspects about the film. The film also entertains with its pre-slasher era influence. A young group of actors is hired to improvise a revue at an old theater off of a run down pier. These participants make the ensembles of the Friday the 13th films look brilliant in comparison, though. Having plenty of time to escape and several offerings of safe hospitality, the performers elect to stay at the gloomy, haunted theater even when their fellow cast mates begin to disappear and die. There are is also the introduction of some of the stock slasher film characters here. There’s the comic buffoon who has more luck with his silly joke effects than women, the virginal heroine and the randy, sex obsessed couple. The show the actors are rehearsing in the film is also patently ridiculous. It is incomprehensible and consists mainly of strange movement pieces – adding another, perhaps unintentional, amusing aspect. Ultimately, while there are several effective stabbings in The Flesh and Blood Show , it is the nudity that rules the day here. In fact, the circumstances of skin bearing almost become humorous. One actress answers a mysterious knocking at her door, in the middle of the night, stark naked while another chooses to take a nap in the rehearsal space with her breasts fully exposed. Ultimately, there are several effective performances – mainly from the voluptuous Luan Peters and future General Hospital star Tristan Rogers as the rutting, sexually active couple. While, The Flesh and Blood Show is more of an amusing time capsule (too mild for modern audiences and too extreme for those who cherish the calmer waters of Universal’s horrors) it is worth a look for slasher completists and was probably responsible for sending co-star Robin Askwith (who became a huge star in bawdy English comedies in the 70’s) onto his next, more successful project. In 1973’s Horror Hospital , Askwith plays Jason, an out of control rock-n-roll personality sent on a relaxing holiday to a health resort in the English countryside. Of course, the crazed doctor residing over the leafy facility is turning the youths of London into grey, mindless zombies with his mind control experiments. Jason, with the help of the doctor’s assistant’s niece, Judy, soon uncovers the fiendish doctor’s plot and they must fight to save themselves from his brain slicing ways. Filled to the brim with grisly bloodletting, decapitations and over-the-top performances, Horror Hospital is goofy fun. Mildly politically incorrect (with put upon dwarves and foppish, middle aged travel agents, and snippy drag queens), this is rainy day material if there ever was any. Michael Gough (the Batman television series) hams it up eccentrically as the crazed Doc Storm and he is met with equal ferocity by Ellen Pollock who plays Judy’s stern, un-giving Aunt. Director Anthony Balch also often supplies a rambling, go-for-broke energy. In fact, add a little more music and delete the few mind numbing scenes concerning Jason’s travel to the grisly estate and his wanderings once he arrives there, and this could have been a midnight classic to rival the grandest midnight classic of all time – The Rocky Horror Picture Show .