Doom Asylum

So back again with a fan request. Yeah (sigh) one of those. Look, I am very appreciative of fan feedback but some of these "films" are pretty painful to sit through. Maybe a nice Billy Wilder movie? Anyway, today's moving picture has a member of Sex and the City, a deformed slasher and a punk band that performs in an abandoned mental asylum. This is Doom Asylum a.k.a. House of Horror.

Grandma Rotty?!

Director Richard Friedman (Tales from the Darkside, Scared Stiff, Friday the 13^th: The Series, Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge, Baywatch Nights, Ground Zero, Halfway to Hell and Love Hurts) working with the script penned by Rick Marx (In Love, Nasty Girls, Sex Spa U.S.A., Maid in Manhattan, Bordello: House of the Rising Sun, Warrior Queen and Gor) so this could be a world of hurt. Of course the director that brought me a cinematic treasure like Darkwolf it...oh wait, I didn't care for that flick. Yup this is gonna hurt.

We open our movie with lawyer Mitch Hansen (Michael Rogen of Doom Asylum, Basket Case 2, Punch the Clock, Wings, Midnight Caller and Tribeca) and his bubbly fiancee Judy (Patty Mullen of Doom Asylum, The Equalizer and Frankenhooker) are cruisin' across the back roads for a 5 million lawsuit and naturally celebrating with champagne while driving. Rut Roh, this is moving into The BrainThat Wouldn't Die territory (FYI watch the MST3K version) and of course we have an accident.

Yeah Highway head. What could go wrong?

Before we go further, yes menfolk there's titty. I know, I know the mention of jiggly girls, nerds vs punks and a mangled serial killer just couldn't have possibly captivated your attention.

Well Mitch is up on the slab for his autopsy. I got to ask why would there even be a need for an autopsy? Booze will still be in his system, that's a quick tox screening and the car was smashed pretty good. Open and shut case, baby. Yes I know, suspend disbelief. 

With a face resembling beef jerky, Mitch has had a tough day, so adding incompetence of the morgue attendee and his intern should really make his afternoon all a flutter. Mitch awakes on the slab and it's good bye morgue docs. Five minutes in and we cut to title cards and opening credits. Lot of pan shots of the abandoned asylum of which a bulk of the film will be taking place in. I heard weird damn near orgasmic moans, cat yowls and manic laughter. The film font for our title looked like a WB cartoon from the 50s. Biggest gripe of this opening is the camera doesn't appear to be on a stabilizer, so we have unintentional shaky cam.

Throw us some beads!!!

10 years later (in the film, not how long it took me to finish this), a gaggle of kids are out and about for some boozing and screwing and babbling about urban legend killers. Say aren't these slasher tropes? Darnell (Harrison White of Se7en, Like a Woman Should, L.A. Noire, The Muppets, Replaced, Bones, Maron, Dads, Rizzoli & Isles and Venice the Series) and his Goof Troop (I mean friends. Yeah friends) Jane (Kirstin Davis of General Hospital, Nine Months, Melrose Place, Three Days, Sex and the City, Soccer Moms and Couples Retreat) Dennis (Kenny L. Price of Doom Asylum), Mike (William Hay of Doom Asylum) and Kiki (Patty Mullen playing a duo role, this time as her previous character's daughter). This outing reminds Kiki this around the area where her mother died in a car accident. WOOO HOOO!!! PARTY DOWN!!! Wtf?!

Kiki and Mike have a heart to heart and well her other friends...they're kind of dicks. "Yer mom's dead! Move on." "I'm hungry!" Yeah glad to be partying with these shitbirds.

There's a legend in these here woods. About a killer known only as Mitch! I mean The Coroner. That he does away with his victims with autopsy tools. Yup that's about it. I imagine you are disappointed with this legend as much as I. Seriously, no Jason Voorhees level back story of the tragic loss of Mitch's face and his dead fiancee. Nothing.

The asylum apparently has a theater stage. Was that for the nutty talent show every year? What sounds like a banshee with a tit caught in a Cuisinart is actually our half-assed punk band.

It becomes this mediocre squabble between the Goof Troop and the pseudo punkers. Seriously? Starting a punk band in 1989? Bit late for that movement, right? 20 minutes into the film we start thinning the cast of one dimensional characters and thank God for that. I don't normally just start trashing a movie due to low budget or having a bunch of kids that never acted and so on but wow this was awful. There is some comedy in this, some of the one-liners from Beef Jerky Krueger are decent enough but overall the lead punk's annoying cackle made me want to burn The Plasmatic albums I have.  Gore effects are fair, a smart move having one main set but unfeasible that no one would have fled from it on foot or in the car. The camera blocking was alright but I really felt a stabilizer would have improved several shots.

Are we meeting our skin quota?

This movie was shot in eight days in an actual abandoned nut house in Verona, New Jersey and was deemed Kristin Davis' first full-length feature film. Ah a proud IMDB addition to the filmography.

Overall take away from this 78 minute movie? A clunky trope-laden film with gore gags, over the top dialogue and cheesy one-liners. No clear direct motive of killing the kids with the exception, he's crazy. Hell even the trip out of creeper former nut house made no damn sense at all. Story wise I had no clue what was going on and it is happenstance Coroner Mitch even bumped into Kiki so their whole potential story arc was shot to Hell and back.

My take from this is: a fine film for drinking games. If you need to riff a turd, look no further.

Pleatherface...