Asylum of Satan – 1975
Tacky PG rated “horror” film,
Director
William Girdler

Writers
William Girdler
Patrick J. Kelly

Producer
J. Patrick Kelly III producer

Cast
Charles Kissinger, Nick Jolley ,Carla Borelli

Review by Wayne Malin

Lucina Martin (Carla Borelli) finds herself in Pleasant Hill. It’s a sanitarium she was put in after a breakdown she was told happened to her but she can’t remember. She find she can’t leave–she’s locked in her room and the sinister Dr. Specter (Charles Kissinger) won’t let her go. Her boyfriend Chris (Nick Jolley) comes to see her but isn’t let in. It turns out she’s to be sacrificed to Satan…or something. I fell asleep to be honest.

Perfectly boring, stupid horror movie. It’s badly acted (Jolley is the worst), directed and edited. Lousy lighting too–I couldn’t make out what was going on a few times. The script is just silly too. The special effects are laughable–I got a BIG kick of the obvious fake rubber spiders used in one scene. It all ends up with some idiot in one of the most ridiculous costumes I’ve ever seen playing Satan! It’s padded too, even at just 78 minutes, with a pointless and silly montage of Lucina and Chris to show their “love” for each other. And wait until you see actor Kissinger in drag (!!!) playing Martine! And Jolley wears some of the worst 1970s clothes I’ve ever seen.

Maybe I’m being a little too hard on this. It was made on no budget and, by all accounts, everybody went out of their way to do as good a job as possible with no money. Still it sadly doesn’t work. Director William Girdler did go on to do bigger and better things–so to speak. He later did “Grizzly” and “The Manitou”. These were hardly classics but much better than this. A 1 all the way.