DOOM
ASYLUM (1987)
Directed by Richard Friedman
Academy VHS
Reviewed 04.13.05
Review by Joseph A. Ziemba
THE FILM
Sometimes it just doesn’t
pay to shell out a dollar for an
honest night’s worth of entertainment.
But not all is lost. At least I
know what happens when people forget
to take their daily pills: a drop-dead
abomination like Doom Asylum.
After the limp Blood
Diner, I made a promise
to myself that I’d never sit
through another late 80s horror
comedy. While shelf perusing at
the video store, I took note of
Doom Asylum’s tagline:
“It’ll send shivers
up your funny bone.” Ugh...what?
That’s got to be one of the
laziest examples of box copy that
I’ve ever encountered. So
what did I do? Rental. I’ve
never claimed to be the sharpest
tool in the shed.
If Doom Asylum wasn’t
so obscure, I wouldn’t have
thought twice. It’s a brainless,
padded out botch that’ll surely
stifle the creative energy in anyone.
It’s crafted that
poorly. Combining PG-13 grapejuice
blood effects with jokes that were
probably rejected from a “Full
House” script, the film struggles
to relate the story of our killer
pal, “The Coroner.”
After winning a huge settlement,
a lawyer and his girlfriend make
out and crash their car. She dies,
he lives; even comes back to life
mid-autopsy. Ten years later, The
Coroner (rubber zombie mask, curly
mullet) has taken up residency in
an old Jersey asylum (Essex Mountain,
supposedly haunted in real life),
sharing his space with a female
goth/noise rock band called Tina
And The Tots. A group of five complete
mongoloids visit the asylum because
one of the girls, Kiki, is apparently
the daughter of The Coroner’s
girlfriend, who died in the car
crash. Got it? The remainder of
the film is padded out with wisecrack
kill scenes (“Relax and go
with the flow. HAHAHAHAHA!”)
and random footage from old Tod
Slaughter films. Now that’s
a little something I like to call
ingenuity.
While I could have laughed at plenty
of the unintentionally funny moments
(sound effects from “Pee Wee’s
Playhouse,” gay actor trying
desperately to act straight, Tina
And The Tots’ rip-ass performances),
I didn’t. The film was supposed
to be intentionally funny, but I
didn’t laugh at those jokes
either. I tried to look at Doom
Asylum for what it was, but
the photography and acting were
ridiculously bad. I mean terrible.
I’m just going to quietly
return this film and imagine it
never happened. Ah well, at least
director Richard Friedman went on
to bigger and better things...like
Phantom
Of The Mall.
AUDIO AND VIDEO
The tape’s stickers were all
greasy and falling off. I didn’t
try to save them. Fittingly, the
picture looks very dupey and the
right speaker had a crackle of noise
throughout the film’s runtime.
EXTRAS
Academy usually adds a trailer after
the feature, but even they knew
to get out ASAP.
FINAL THOUGHTS
With a sneer and a flip of the bird,
I must signal a bitter end to my
relationship with 80s horror comedies.
It’s time to move on and I
can’t think of a better death
toll than Doom Asylum.
Who loves ya, baby? |
A good try, but...
Smells are free
Glasses depot
The Coroner gets sassy
|
