Really Surprised!

People are voting emotionally.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

The first thing I would like to say is that I fully understand that this was a low-budget horror movie costing only about £50,000 to produce. So I suppose it's unrealistic to expect too much from it. That said I was perfectly willing to make allowances here and there. Surprisingly, unlike many low-budget features the acting in this particular movie was pretty good with both Robin Askwith (as "Jason Jones") and Vanessa Shaw ("Judy Peters") certainly holding their own. Unfortunately, I must also add that there were quite a few dull scenes here and there and it was difficult for me to maintain interest past the first 30 minutes or so. Not only that but it also seemed like the scenario where Jason was caught, beaten and put into a cell was played out one time too many. Same thing with Judy being sedated. In any case, I suppose it's a border-line "Pre-Romero" type of zombie film and just marginally worth adding to any zombie enthusiast's collection. Not great by any means--but not terribly bad either. Accordingly, I rate it as only slightly below average.

Those who deprecate this film for its wooden acting, improbable plot, ridiculous dialogue, and dire special effects are missing the point. It's a romp. More tongue-in-cheek spoof of Hammer Horror than anything else, this openly silly flick is fabulously enjoyable. Just don't expect to be scared, because it's meant to be ludicrous. The scene of a dwarf (the superb Skip Martin) arranging a pair of drugged biker guards in order to use them as a stepladder is brilliantly funny, and evokes classic comedy from the era of Vaudeville. Laurel & Hardy, Bob Hope, and Abbot & Costello also appeared in tongue-in-cheek "scary" movies of a similar ilk, but this quintessentially British product throws in a cheerful dollop of seaside-postcard "Carry On" style foolishness with Robin Askwith from the "Confessions of ..." sex comedy series.Enjoy!

In Britain between the rise of Hammer Horror films, sometime around 1958 and the release of their version of 'Dracula', and the early/mid 1970's there were scores of cheep horror films released. These can, I believe, be placed into one of three categories, Low Budget Classic (ie the aforementioned 'Dracula', its stablemate of the same period 'Frankenstein', 'The Pit and The Pendulum' etc), Cult Films like 'Circus of Horrors', 'Scream and Scream Again' etc, and the outright awful! Guess which category I would place 'Horror Hospital'?! This film is simply ludicrous, far too illogical, even within the world it has created for itself, and so poorly put together that it gets nowhere near being a LBC, and falls so short of being a Cult that it is laughable.I am aware that it is difficult to view any horror film of any age by modern day standards, the genre has moved on so rapidly, and become so much more graphic, but even by comparing this film to its contemporaries it falls well short of any real horror and scares. Today it is about as scary as a wet weekend in Weston-Super-Mare (for non-Brits that is a seaside town in the west of England that is mainly populated by the over 60's!, a British equivalent of, say, Atlantic City!). The concept of a Health Farm - not even a proper hospital note! (the makers had to squeeze in a line of dialogue to justify the title!) - being used for experimentation on the feckless youth of the day - young people who, of course, no one will notice have gone missing (don't these kids have parents?) and turned into "zombies" (although as "zombies" I would have thought that Dr Storm would have found better things to use them for beyond that of acrobatics!) is beyond belief. To go into all the plot holes would take all day, but I have one question, why do all the thugs wear leathers and crash helmets all the time, even when in doors? (Apart, of course, to disguise the fact that at least one is a woman! When was the last time you saw a male thug clearly wearing lipstick?!) The one really big question about this mess of a film is this, just how did talented people like Michael Gough, Ellen Pollock and, most notably, Dennis Price, became embroiled in such rubbish? Wait... I have thought of one redeeming feature, albeit a personal one! Over the past few years I have become friends with a Mr Robert Dearberg. Guess who was the editor on this mess? Yep, my old mate Bob Dearberg, the one and same person! We spend a lot of time discussing the merits of this film, that movie etc, and often disagree. The next time Bob slags off a film I have enjoyed I can look him in the eyes and say just two words.. "Horror Hospital"...!

Horror Hospital is far too silly to be taken seriously, but that's what makes the film so good! The film throws in one illogical sequence after another, and if you tried to account for all the events in the movie and make sense of them; you'd be completely wasting your time. In fact, if you're watching this film you are, in fact, wasting your time, but the film makes up for this by being lots of fun and this ensures that it's always delightful. The film clearly knows that it's trash rather than a serious horror film, and this is shown throughout by the tongue-in-cheek mood that runs through it. The filmmakers clearly couldn't keep a straight face while making this film and that translates onto the screen. The ridiculous plot follows the insane Dr Storm and his "heath farm". After travelling there for a holiday and meeting a young lady on her way to see her aunt (who works at the "health farm"), a British man named Jason finds that his holiday might not be going as planned, and once he finds out that the not-so-good doctor is conducting experiments into making zombies; Jason, the girl and some other bloke that turns up must make a bid for freedom! When it comes to bad movie-making, this film has it all; a terrible script, duff cinematography, useless actors delivering stupid performances, daft music, a clichéd, rip-off ridden and implausible plot and the list goes on.... yet, somehow, it all moulds together into something very watchable. I think another reviewer summed it up best when he talked about the hilarious sequence that sees the utterly superfluous character, Abraham, introduced into the film. I actually had to rewind that part of the film about five times just to fully take in how amazingly stupid it is. The film is full of moments like that, and that's why this piece of trash appeals much more than the standard trash that was produced en mass in the seventies. Michael Gough helps to make this film a winner with his delightfully over the top camp performance as the 'evil' Dr Storm. You can always count on Gough to overact and make himself look silly, and that's exactly what he does here. On the whole, if you like your movies to be serious; you wont get an ounce of enjoyment out of Horror Hospital. But if you like them to be stupid and camp - prepare for a truly GREAT ride!