When attempts to break into the pop business leave him with nothing but a bloody nose, songwriter Jason Jones decides to take a break with 'Hairy Holidays', an outfit run by shifty, gay travel agent Pollack. After failing to chat Jason up, Pollack sends him to pseudo-health farm Brittlehurst Manor.
On the train journey there, Jason meets Judy who is travelling to the same destination to meet her long-lost aunt. Both are unaware that the health farm (i.e. "Horror Hospital") is a front for Dr. Storm and his lobotomy experiments that turn wayward hippies into his mindless zombie slaves.
The wheelchair-using doctor surrounds himself with an entourage that includes Judy's aunt, erstwhile brothel madam Olga, dwarf Frederick and numerous zombie biker thugs. Dr. Storm also has a Princess car, fitted with a giant blade that decapitates escapees and interfering parties. Abraham arrives at the Horror Hospital "looking for his chick" and is promptly whacked around the head by the motorcycle zombies. Frederick, fed up at literally being Storm's whipping boy, helps the kids escape as paving the way for the 1970s youth to put the final spanner/wrench in the works to Storm's scheme.
After the success of his feature film debut Secrets of Sex (1969), an anthology sex film that flirted with horror themes, Antony Balch envisioned his second film as an out-and-out horror film and one with a continuous narrative. Location filming was undertaken in and around Knebworth House near Stevenage, Hertfordshire.
Writing
The script was written by Balch and his friend Alan Watson during the 1972 Cannes Film Festival, although the film's title was thought up before the plot. Among Watson's ideas for the Horror Hospital script was the lethal Rolls-Royce, with its giant blade that decapitated people as it drove by.
Filming
The film was shot during a four-week schedule beginning on 16 October 1972. Shooting was done at Merton Park (mainly the pop group scene), Battersea Town Hall (which provided the interiors of Brittlehurst Manor) and Knebworth House.
The film's last night party on 11 November was compromised when Phoebe Shaw served cake that was laced with drugs. In his autobiography, Askwith wrote "I don’t know what she put in the cake but I ended up with a twenty stone electrician Roy, sitting on my lap telling me he thought he was in love with me." Only producer Richard Gordon managed to avoid eating the cake.
Casting
Robin Askwith's role was specially written for him after he appeared in Gordon's previous 1972 production Tower of Evil. Balch asked Michael Gough to base his performance on Bela Lugosi, screening him a 16mm print of The Devil Bat, in which Lugosi plays a mad perfume manufacturer.
The female lead was taken by Phoebe Shaw, who had previously appeared in several TV commercials, and was renamed 'Vanessa Shaw' for the film. During filming, Shaw and Askwith briefly became lovers. Her only other known roles were an uncredited bit part in a 1969 American TV adaptation of David Copperfield and brief roles as a boutique assistant in Say Hello to Yesterday (1970) and a police cadet in Ooh… You Are Awful(1972).[2] 'Dwarf' actor Skip Martin (who ran a tobacconist's shop in between acting assignments) and veteran character actor Dennis Price also appeared in the film, as well as Kurt Christian as whose full title was Baron Kurt Christian von Siengenberg, and who left the country not long after the film was released. His ambition at the time, according to Films and Filming magazine, was to "play a role that does not involve killing somebody".
Nicky Henson was originally considered for Christian's role.
Music
Horror Hospital also contains a pop music number, "Mark of Death", composed by Jason DeHavilland and performed by the group Mystic (James IV Boris, Alan "The River" Hudson, Simon Lust).
Home media
The film was originally released on DVD in the US by Elite Entertainment on 2 November 1999. A new remastered DVD with a new commentary from producer Richard Gordon was released by Dark Sky Films on 15 June 2010. The DVD release is set for 15 June 2010 by MPI Media Group.[3]
The film was re-released on DVD and released for the first time on Blu-ray in the UK from Odeon on 10 August 2015.[4][5]
References
^"Horror Hospital". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 3 January 2024.
