Welcome to Zombie Strains, the podcast that watches all the Zombie Movies.

This week, sweet innocent Judy travels to meet her mysterious aunt.

“Oh, my mother had a terrible row with her because of her whorehouse, and I was never allowed to meet her.”

She meets Jason, who wants a weekend spa treatment.

“Your Dr. Storm is supposed to have this really weird therapy, which is supposed to cure all your hangups in a week.”

How weird is the therapy?

“We make an incision, yes, Jason, rather more than an incision, a tunnel into the mind through which I can grab a little thought with my psychic hands.”

That's right. Things are getting spooky and sexy and gory in 1973's Horror Hospital.

You know, I've seen people act like that in pictures. What do they call them, zombies or something?

Zombie.

Zombie?

What's a zombie?

Well a zombie…there’s um... ...Mr. Bill there’s... ...the living dead.

They are the living dead.

Get me the zombies!

Against an army of zombies, no armies could stand!

The unburied dead are coming back to life and seeking human victims.

I’ve seen the dead rise.

Kill the brain, and you kill the ghoul.

Welcome to Zombie Strains, the podcast, where it's Halloween all year round. I'm John.

I'm Andy.

And I'm Brad.

Hello, my friends, my zombie-loving friends. Do you guys do anything fun for Halloween? We're recording this the day after Halloween.

No, not really. I've got, both of my kids are older, but they can still go trick-or-treating, ironically, so they dressed up as cool stuff. That was fun.

Good kid. Yeah, my kids don't live here anymore, so I'm sure they, I know my son went to a party. I don't know anything beyond that. Though we did have a mutual friend, Andy, whose four-year-old went as a unicorn, and she had her two-year-old brother go as a unicorn fart, which is pretty great. He's too young to know that that's a problem. All right. I just wanted to mention one thing. You, me, and everyone I know are talking about You Can See Everything, the new Nathan Fielder documentary. Yeah. So you two have seen it, I believe. Yes. I was going to go this afternoon. I bought a ticket at the State Theater, Brad, for 12.15 thinking, I'll just go see it and then I'll come to the podcast and we'll talk about it. Then I looked it up, it's three hours.

Yes, it is.

So I wasn't going to make it back in time to record the podcast. So I returned that ticket and bought a ticket for 6.15. So we got to wrap up so I can go see.

So we can't go three hours.

We can't go three hours. The movie is going three hours. In any case, we will probably not be able to work that into a podcast episode, but maybe we'll mention it briefly next time.

I don't know.

Yeah, I don't know, John.

There's some zombie-adjacent behavior in the documentary. We'll just put it that way.

All right. I'm here for it. I'm excited. Well, producer Brad, we're watching this very fascinating film. I think this is the most, Andy, I think we're here, right? Yeah. When you were describing the 1970s, I feel like this is the aggressively platonic ideal of the movie that you were thinking of, right?

It's clear within 60 seconds of starting this film, that you are watching a full bore 70s schlockfest.

The outfits, the music, the hair, it's out of control.

In those 60 seconds, did you cringe or did you smile, happy that it was finally happening?

I smiled. I don't know if I would say that meant I was happy this was happening, but how do you not smile at this movie's opening minute or two, which we'll get to shortly. Yes.

Okay. Well, producer Brad, tell us how 1973's Horror Hospital came to be.

Horror Hospital is an English horror film that was released in the UK in May 1973 and in the US in April 1974. This is not to be confused with the 1971 satirical film, Hospital, directed by Arthur Hiller, written by Patty Chayefsky and starring George C.

Scott.

We just want to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Isn't Arthur Hiller like a famous writer?

Well, Patty Chayefsky is. Didn't he write Network?

Oh, you're right.

I'm just making sure everyone knows they were not involved in Horror Hospital. That's the point of the statement.

I think this movie could have used George C. Scott, but carry on.

That had the feel of a legally required disclaimer, Brad.

Well, Horror Hospital has also been released under these titles, Dr. Bloodbath, Dr. Frankenstein's Horror Clinic, Computer Killers, and Death Ward No. 13.

Computer Killers? I suppose there's some of those reel-to-reel things that used to be computers in old movies that are here.

If I were charged with making Computer Killers, I would take this film and as a few other films we've watched I've done, I would just splice in footage from some other show that had computers or robots and yeah.

Yes. Leftover footage from Star Trek or something.

Yeah.

Okay, well, other films released in May 1973 were Paper Moon with Ryan O'Neill and Tatum O'Neill and Battle for the Planet of the Apes. So that's the milieu of this film.

Well, against that crowd it's not as bad as I thought.

Antony Balch directed Horror Hospital. Balch was born in London in 1937. He grew up with a love for horror movies and this was partly fueled by meeting Bela Lugosi in 1951.

Oh, wow.

Balch was 14 and Lugosi was touring England with a stage version of Dracula. And Andy, if you're doing this, you'll go down the rabbit hole of that stage production. Apparently there were numerous problems. It was very cheap. There was a bat that dangled from a string that didn't always leave the stage on time and it was just a mess and it did not do what he hoped it would do, which is return him to stage glory.

I am praying that there is footage out there somewhere of this.

I don't know. That's something to look up. Balch, in his early 20s, moved to Paris. There he met William Burroughs. They became collaborators and Balch directed two experimental short films, Towers Open Fire and The Cut Ups. These were inspired by the cut up technique that Burroughs helped popularize. The 1967 film, The Cut Ups, repurposed footage from an abandoned documentary on Burroughs. Balch divided the film into four sections, then directed his editor to cut the film into one foot segments. The editor then recombined the strips in a designated order, segment one, two, three, four, repeat, foot by foot. You can watch this film on YouTube and there's a link in the show notes.

Andy, if I had known that, we would have done a deep dive on how William Burroughs did that.

Yeah. I first encountered William S Burroughs in college. I was assigned it in a reading class and I was so enraged when I found out about the cut up method that I was reading just gibberish. I've since come to appreciate it, but I can still feel that burning hate when I realized that my copy of Naked Lunch had just been randomly reordered with no purpose.

It's really frustrating because you feel like you're taking work seriously and he is not.

Exactly. Yes.

There were reports when the film was shown that people were leaving the theater disoriented, leaving items behind at a larger number than other films. So it had the desired effect on the audience.

All right.

Well, Balch moved back to London and was hired to manage two movie theaters. He programmed both exploitation and art house films. Balch also became a distributor, releasing films like The Corpse Grinders and Supervixens in the UK. Then in 1970, he partnered with Richard Gordon to produce and direct his first feature length film, The Secrets of Sex. It's an anthology exploitation film with an Egyptian mummy introducing each segment. So I just remember last episode, Andy was asking or saying that no one's cracked how to use a mummy. We haven't seen this film to know if they did it properly in this film. You should check it out, Andy.

I'm sold. I think that this guy cracked the mummy code.

Richard Gordon was a producer with a history of horror and exploitation films. Titles he produced include The Electronic Monster, Corridors of Blood, The Playgirls, and The Vampire, and InSeminoid.

Doesn't this guy seem like he must have directed one of those stewardess movies that have come up a couple of times in this podcast?

The Music is from DeWolf Music, a music library company that was formed in 1909 to provide music for silent films. In the 20s, the company added recordings to their library. The music from this library shows up everywhere, from 1940s newsreels to Doctor Who, to Monty Python, to the Shaw Brothers films in Hong Kong. And more importantly, George Romero sourced much of the score for Dawn of the Dead from DeWolf.

Oh, nice.

And all of this leads us to Horror Hospital, produced by Richard Gordon and Antony Balch, and directed by Balch. It's his second and final feature film. He co-wrote it with his friend Alan Watson, and this is Watson's only film credit. So let's talk about the cast. Michael Gough plays the villain, Dr. Storm. Gough was a British actor with a long career, stretching from 1948 to 2010. Balch's direction to Gough was to draw inspiration from the 1940 Bela Lugosi film, The Devil Bat. And once you know that, you can sort of see in his performance, especially in the way Gough moves his eyes without moving his head and kind of looks out the corner of his eyes. It's very Lugosi-like.

Now, you mentioned this last week, but most Gen Xers will know him. He was the butler to Val Kilmer in his Batman films.

And Michael Keaton.

He was in four of the Batman films.

Correct.

Okay.

Does Horror Hospital seem like a movie you film early in your career or late in your career? Because I was surprised he went on to be in massive international blockbusters after this performance.

But he was a working actor. He was in Boys from Brazil, he was in Episodes of the Avengers, and he was in Anna Karenina. I think you just slummed it sometimes.

I will say, he's clearly the pro in this movie.

Well, I'm excited. Sorry, we're taking this away from you, producer Brad. He's in The Serpent and the Rainbow from 1989, which is a movie we're going to see and I have my eye on it.

Yeah. So Andy, to answer your question, he was also a stage actor. So like many of the British actors, they do a lot of stage work. And there was a story about how Lawrence Olivier was doing some production and was casting a lot of big name people. And Gough publicly scolded him for not including stage actors, which led to Gough getting his choice of parts of what was left. So he was a really good stage actor and was tied up in that world too. John, in terms of what else he did, you also left out Top Secret. He played Dr. Flemond, the imprisoned scientist from that film.

Oh, that's so great.

Robin Asquith plays Jason Jones. He is our male lead in the film. His first film credit was in 1968. After Horror Hospital, he starred in the 1974 film Confession of a Window Cleaner, which then had three sequels. So he had a little franchise going.

Nice. So I had to look him up, Andy, because of the name Asquith. Now, he spells it A-S-K-W-I-T-H. It turns out that he is no relation to Herbert Asquith. Do you remember who Herbert Asquith is?

No.

English Prime Minister before the First World War.

Okay.

Or maybe not Prime Minister, one of the English. Maybe he was just the cabinet. I think he was the Prime Minister. Anyway. So I had to look it up and they spell it differently, first of all, but there is a town, like a country town in England called Asquith. So it could be a family name, though nobody knows that there's any connection between the two. Sorry. Just had to do, I was reading British history and I just couldn't stop myself.

Well, Asquith continues to act. He was in the TV show, The Man in Blank Mysteries that aired this year in 2026.

Okay.

Vanessa Shaw plays Judy. She has eight acting credits and this was her last. Ellen Pollock plays Aunt Harris. She was an established theater actor who loved Bernard Shaw. She served as the president of the Bernard Shaw Society for many years. I couldn't confirm this, but it almost looks like she started in 1950 something up until her death in 1997. She was the president.

Oh, wow.

And she also taught at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. So she also is a very accomplished actor.

You know, this ended a couple of careers. I'm glad it didn't end hers or Michael Gough's, I guess.

Dennis Price plays Mr. Pollock. He had a long career playing a lot of upper class characters. And this is his second zombie film. Did you guys recognize him?

He does. Oh, he was in The Earth Dives Screaming.

He was in Earth Dives Screaming.

He was the guy we didn't like.

He played Quinn Taggart, the snooty cynical survivor who was only out for himself.

He seemed like that guy to me, but I didn't make the connection till you just said it.

Well, I think at this point in his life, he doesn't look as thin, so I don't think he was as healthy as he was. And right before this, he declared bankruptcy.

Oh dear.

And he said it was from extravagant living and gambling. And so suddenly there's a whole bunch of horror movies like The Horror of Frankenstein, Vampiros Lesbos, Twins of Evil, Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein, and The Erotic Rights of Frankenstein show up in his credits.

Let there be a lesson to you, kids. If you gamble away your winnings as a famous actor, you'll have to be in The Erotic Rights of Frankenstein. That doesn't sound good for anybody.

And he died shortly after this film too.

Goodness. This film's like a black widow.

Skip Martin plays Frederick, Dr. Storm's, I guess we call him, assistant. He was an actor with dwarfism and he had few options for roles. So many of his appearances were in horror films.

It's interesting. We're solidly in that, because we've seen this a bunch of times, we're solidly in the little people or dwarves are inherently scary part of horror history. And it just doesn't land for me as a modern, you know what I mean? Like, it just feels weird. I think at the time they thought there was something inherently scary and it's offensive, but it also just doesn't work anymore, you know what I mean, Andy?

Yeah, it is uncomfortable. I agree with you.

Yeah.

Well, you can watch this film on DVD and Blu-ray. I watched the Blu-ray version and it looked and sounded great. It's also available for digital purchase and rental, if anyone's interested in catching up to this.

You know what's funny is at the movie open, there was that first shot in vibrant color. And I'm like, something about this didn't seem right to me. I was like, oh, it looks like a well-printed film.

I think by vibrant, you mean stable. Yes, stable. The color wasn't jittery. That's what I have. So John, anything you want to add?

Yeah. So this is an interesting time in the history of Britain. In 1973, a lot of things happened in Britain. And so I want to go into those a little bit. I don't know how much those show up in the movie, but I think they might a little bit. And maybe we could discuss that at the end, Andy, to see if they do. So I don't know if you've ever heard the expression, the 60s was the party and the 70s was the hangover. That was certainly the case in Britain in 1973. So just to give a brief timeline of events, a much contested election, a referendum in January of 1973, Britain joins the EEC, the Common Market, European Common Market, which is the precursor to the European Union. And just like Brexit, it was hotly contested and a lot of people did not want to join. So there was a lot of conflict in Britain at the time. This is a fading empire. Their empire is pretty much faded. They had until about 1948 an enormous amount of influence in the world that has been slowly petering out over the last 25 years. But a lot of other things happened this year, which does not make it any easier for them. In October 1973, there's the Yom Kippur War, and then the Arab oil embargo happens, and oil prices roughly quadruple. I do not remember this because I was a little boy, but I heard the stories. So here's what happened though in Britain. Britain, you think, might have been okay because it is a huge coal, or was a huge coal producing country. So a lot of their power was provided by coal. However, they had a separate problem. It's always been a labor-friendly country, which is not something I'm criticizing. But what happened right in 1973 is that as they needed more power, because oil was becoming so expensive, the miners union insisted on a pay raise, and they got it. What happened is they were being paid so much, the government actually had to restrict their overtime. So their production went down, but the cost of production went up. So Prime Minister Heath tried to counter this by announcing a three-day work week for the miners, to try to control costs. However, this did not work, and what happens doesn't happen in 1973, but just to give you a spoiler, to get the miners back to work, they had to give them another raise, which at this point, the British government is literally running out of money. There's a very famous moment that happens three years later. Do you remember what Britain did in 1976, that was, it wasn't unheard of because they've done it before, it was the scale of it that they did in 1976, because their economy was so broken.

I know. What is it?

A huge Western country who used, had a former empire spanning the world, had to take a $4 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, which is not the kind of loan that large countries are taking. This is something we usually consider that developing or third world countries are taking. So Britain had sort of hit rock bottom by this point. So conveniently, everything I just said is also an explanation of where punk rock comes from. So that's nice.

We sort of killed two birds with one stone.

So we can say Britain is on the precipice of probably their worst economic period in the modern era, post-World War II. And for sure, I think a lot of historians, if you like the rest of history, Dominic Sandberg studies this period. And particularly, they have a series on Britain 1974 to 1976 because it was sort of the darkest days in Britain as far as the economics and the government goes. It felt like their whole government was going to go out of business. So it's a fascinating and dark time. So this is a really stressful time in England. And I don't know. Well, let's talk about it at the end. But how does a horror movie like this land in an environment like that and what does it say about it?

Fascinating. All right. Well, with that in mind, it's time to, I was trying to think of a good metaphor here to put on our hospital gowns or something like that and head over to Horror Hospital.

Anyway, scrub up. Yeah. Scrub up.

Do that thing where they snap their gloves or something like that, and head over to Horror Hospital. Let's talk about this movie. John, do you want to light our way with a 60-second or so summary of the plot of Horror Hospital?

Well, the movie opens with a couple who's clearly in distress fleeing from the aforementioned Horror Hospital. And I will let you say what happens to them, but that's our teaser to the film, as they don't make good on their escape. Then we immediately cut to Jason. He's a burned-out songwriter. He's in a club, and a band has stolen his song, and he sort of hits rock bottom. He gets in a fight, and he books a cheap getaway through a travel company called Harry Holidays, which is a reference to bearded, hairy hippies.

It's Harry spelled AI, not RR.

Correct. On his way there, he meets Judy on the train who's headed the same way, because she wants to visit her aunt. It's a place called Brittlehurst Manor, a health farm run by Dr. Christian Storm and his assistant Olga, and a dwarf servant or a little person servant named Frederick. Storm secretly performs brain surgery on the young guest, turning them into obedient zombie-like slaves, and anyone who tries to escape is beheaded by a blade that pops out of the side of his Austin VandenPlas Princess Mark IV limousine. As Jason teams up with Abraham, a guest searching for his missing girlfriend, they uncover experiments as Judy becomes Storm's next target. Anyway, that is how the movie opens and proceeds. It's about escaping the castle, the Horror Hospital.

Yes. Listeners, bear with us for the hideous reveal about Dr. Storm that you get in this movie's final moments.

It's great.

It really re-contextualizes everything you've seen today, just like the twists and you can see everything. Okay. Let's talk Horror Hospital, you guys.

Andy, before we do that, can I just say, I would bet money that you're the first person on a podcast to compare We Can See Everything to Horror Hospital. I just want to say that, that you can stick that feather right in your cap.

It is quite a trip. I did have this thought while watching Horror Hospital. Just the mental whiplash. Earlier this week, I watched a prestige documentary, a 24 documentary, and then I watched this, which is whatever the other end of the spectrum of filmmaking is, it's where Horror Hospital lives. Let's talk Horror Hospital, you guys. John, as you mentioned, we open, I don't know if it's already standard in horror movies. It certainly is going to become a cliché, but it opens with a gnarly kill before cutting back and then doing some buildup with our heroes.

Can we pause before we get to that? Can we talk about the title sequence?

Please.

Correct me if I'm wrong, is this the first film to actually have a title sequence where there's art in the title?

Yes, maybe. There was one, what about, it was a cheap movie.

Yeah, I think we've seen it once or twice, others.

Yeah, I'm trying to think of which one it was. It will come to me later, but there was one that had a very sort of artistic title sequence.

Well, just so the listeners know, it's a black screen and then red blood drips down the center and creates a strip and the blood continues to flow throughout the credits, which I thought was a nice little touch. It was a good little omen of what was to come.

Now don't question, doesn't that title thing, doesn't it come after this opening kill?

Oh, I can't remember.

I think it might.

You are correct.

Because I remember it opening on, you see a side shot of the car. You are correct.

Okay, but this kill we've been talking about is completely over the top, dialed to 11. So the first thing we see in this movie is the world's most sinister man sitting in his car.

What is with his hat? Can we start with his hat?

Please describe his hat.

It's almost like a hat like one of the three musketeers would wear, except it's black and fuzzy. Is that right? Are we talking about the same hat?

Yeah, it's furry.

It's furry.

Is it supposed to evoke Russia?

I don't know. It's got a pretty broad brim.

We learn later he does have a Soviet background.

That's right. Maybe that's it. But what it looks like is it's got this slanted angle to it, and it really looks like a musketeer hat, maybe not pinned on the side, but it's crazy. I also want to talk about the car, but you let me know when you're ready.

Yeah, of course. Well, we're going to learn later. This is Dr. Storm, the sinister master of the Horror Hospital. He's in this car with his assistant, Frederick, who is played by Skip Martin, I think. He's the dwarf or little person and he's a henchman who plays a pretty big role in the movie to come. John, tell us what car they're sitting in.

I'd never heard of this car. When I looked up the movie, it referred to it as a Rolls Royce, I knew that wasn't true because it didn't have the Rolls Royce. A car of this vintage would have the famous Rolls Royce hood ornament on it, which it does not have. It is an Austin Vanden Blas Princess Mark IV Limousine. They were only manufactured in the mid-50s. This is a 1958 to the early 60s. It had a giant engine in it, even it was at a four-liter engine in it. But what it was, it was mostly for government officials and high-ranking dignitaries. This is like a limousine's limousine. Dr. Storm has it, and I think that's why it's so, I don't know. Anachronistic isn't right, but it looks like a really expensive car. It also takes 15 seconds to go from 0 to 60, so I'm skeptical that the trick they're about to do could work in the way they're suggesting. Yeah.

Well, it has a special modification that I'm guessing was not standard on cars of this model. So what we're dancing around, dear listeners, is as Dr. Storm and Frederick are sitting in this car, they're clearly waiting for someone, and two young people, a man and a woman, covered in blood, burst out of the woods. They're in a lightly forested area, and these two people run desperately past. Clearly, Dr. Storm has been waiting for these people, because they start up the car and they start chasing these two young people. And in what I could only describe as a James Bond villain sort of set up, it turns out Dr. Storm's car is equipped with a blade that pops out of the side of the roof.

And it makes a great sound.

It goes, swing, swing.

And what he does is he chases you with his car with the blade out, and the blade is right at neck level. So he drives past you and chops your head off as he drives by. And then there is a little basket for catching the heads.

It looks like a canvas windsock.

Yes, exactly. So that's what he does to these two people. And can you guys think of an easier trap to avoid than this?

No.

Okay.

But it's great, so we don't mind.

It is bonkers. You know, people endlessly criticize the movie, Ridley Scott's movie Prometheus for a scene in which a character is crushed by something where if they had just run to the side instead of run straight forward, they would have possibly escaped death. I just want to say the problem goes farther back than Ridley Scott's 2012 movie or whatever that was, so.

And they managed to get two heads in one. Like where they're perfectly standing in line one in front of the other and then.

Do you think that not showing the actual heads get cut off is because it would have been too gross or because they couldn't figure out how to do it on the screen?

I think it would have been too gross. I think it might have crossed the line, but can we stop here for a second and talk about the sort of jump that we made gore-wise here? Please. This was delightful, right? But the heads get cut off and then we immediately see the shot lingers on two headless bodies that are clearly fake. Lying in the road with fake blood coming out of them, it's gory. To a modern eye, it looks really fake, but it's like a new level. We also have a lot of nudity and sex in this film, and it's like a little video nasty. I feel like we've entered a new world of the 70s that we always thought we were going to enter, and I feel like we've just jumped in with both feet. You know what I mean?

A hundred percent. A couple of movies ago, or a number of movies ago, we identified I Drink Your Blood as our first real leap forward in nastiness. But after that, that movie was followed by a bunch of movies that were more timid. But here we are, everything's dialed to 11 in this movie.

Can I say what it reminded me of?

Yeah, please.

It reminded me of the Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake. That was our first movie where we said, oh, they actually for a single second show to beheaded body. That was in 1959. That's a little while ago relative to this film, but they've just seemed to have just gone to the next level. They behead the body, they show the dead body, they show the blood everywhere. It's different. Anyway, sorry, I just found it fascinating.

Yeah, and we can move on from this opening kill in just a second, but it really does make an impression, dear listeners. As soon as I was done, I was texting John and Brad with what on earth are we watching? Because it's just such a crazy thing. We've said this on a number of movies before, but we are in the era, I think, of the cool kill, right? This is like a Freddy kill or a Jason kill, right? It's highly improbable. It wouldn't work in real life, but boy, does it look fantastically gross on screen.

It was laughable in I Drink Your Blood. This movie knows it's over the top, and it wants to make sure you know that it knows, and yeah, it's a delight.

Yeah, I don't know. We've seen very few movies that put their thesis statement out so clearly in the opening 60 seconds as this.

Yes.

Yeah, not just in the opening 60 seconds, but in front of the title, it's kind of like a Bond teaser segment.

I was going to say that. Is this a British thing, right? Because we've got the teaser.

I don't know.

It very much does feel like a James Bond pre-credit teaser, doesn't it?

Yes.

Okay, well, I think we've talked about that, Kil, but we are going to get more of the car decapitator blade later in this movie, so don't be disappointed listeners, but we have to move on. So then we get our credits that Brad already discussed, and then we switch to a more traditional movie setup. We meet our hero, and we spend 20 or 25 minutes with the hero making his way to the place where all the bad stuff is going to happen. So guys, I want to talk a little bit about our hero here, but I don't think we need to hit on every single point that happens. This is another movie with a lot of incident in it, so Brad and John, I'm going to need your help in keeping me focused on what's important. We meet Jason, as John said in his intro, Jason is a songwriter, and he has just been ripped off by a band or a band's producer or something like that, who stole his song and didn't pay him or something like that. Is that right?

That's right.

Andy, I can play a segment of that song if you'd like to relive it.

Oh, please.

Please do. Yes. So I do actually really like Psychedelic Rock from this era. So I'm not going to really complain too much about that song. But we get kind of a weird club scene here. I thought, I didn't know what exactly was going on, but we see a lot of this movie. There's like a cross-dressing lead singer or something like that. But the end result of this is, Jason decided he's had enough. He's just had this bad business experience. He needs a break. And so one of his friends suggests, hey, there's like a travel agent that sets up holidays for people like you. This is Harry Holidays with John, which you mentioned, which is like, I guess the target audience is hippies that need to get away from it all for a week or so. Is that right?

Yeah, I thought that was the whole point of hippie-dom, but I don't want to criticize. Yeah, and it's in a magazine advertisement, which is also delightful. And the picture is just like a scribble, like a scribble of hair and a scribble of beard with two dots for eyes, and it says Harry Holidays.

You know, what happens when you get a little fed up with being a hippie all the time? I guess you would need sort of a break, right? At any rate, he goes to see The World's Creepiest Travel Agent. This is Mr. Pollock, who is going to be important, but we're going to learn later. He is sinisterly feeding victims to the Horror Hospital.

That's right.

And Mr. Pollock sells Jason on a week or weekend long getaway to, I guess, I don't know if this is when this was last a thing, sort of like a therapy hospital.

That's what, yeah, it's like a, they call it a spa, but like that would be so like somebody maybe was having a, like a nervous breakdown or something, we go to a spa like this.

And in the Thunderball movie, James Bond goes to shrub lands for a detox.

And it's a similar kind of, it looks like for our American viewers, it looks like an old Downton Abbey that's converted into some different business.

You know what I mean?

Because it's got so many rooms they can use it as a hospital ward kind of thing. Yeah.

Well, you know, I'm trying to think what's important here. Among other things, this is where the camera first ogles. It's the actors on the screen. It's implied that the travel agent, Wikipedia describes this travel agent as a quote shifty gay travel agent.

So it's definitely coded as gay.

Yeah.

And I would like to give the movie some credit for, I mean, it's all the male gays, but instead of just ogling the female anatomy, the travel agent does get a good look at the male anatomy.

Yes.

Yes, he does.

That was probably aided by the director who was gay.

All right. That makes sense.

All right. So after a little bit of convincing, Jason decides he's going to go to, is it Brittleworth Estate?

I believe so.

Brittleworth Manor, which is where this health spot is. That's way out of the boondocks, of course, like any good horror movie location.

What I love about this though is he decides and then he just goes. He doesn't saunter, he sprints to the train station and sprints onto the train. He's like, I'm just going. I've decided, let's go.

Can you describe Jason for us? Both, what does Jason look like and then what's Jason's attitude, John?

He looks like an aspiring rock star. He's got jeans. He looks like Mick Jagger.

He does.

He looks like Mick Jagger. He's got jeans with a patch right in the butt and a cool jacket, and he's got long hair that went down not all the way to his shoulders, but the nape of his neck and the big huge sideburns. Yeah, he looks like Mick Jagger. He's a less handsome Mick Jagger, but he's British handsome. How about that?

Ouch, man. Well, he gets on the train to head out there, and that's where he meets this movie's other protagonist. This is Sweet Innocent Judy.

Yes.

Judy is also on this train, and it turns out she also is going to the exact same place.

He ogles her knees.

Yes.

That's what he's interested in.

Her knees are uncovered. It's pretty scandalous. Judy is going out here to visit her Aunt Harris. We get the first of several pieces of really convoluted backstory that made me think, I have to imagine most of the people making this movie were like, hey kids, do you want to see a naked zombie? But then one person was like, but wait guys, how could we logically get, how would they logically be getting the zombie victims in post-war Europe? Maybe someone set up a brothel and because of the post-war economy, it was, you know, someone thought really hard about making it make sense. So we get a long backstory and basically, Judy's never met her Aunt Harris and there's some gobbledygook about needing Aunt Harris to sign off on some like legal papers after Judy's mom's death.

Correct.

So there's a lot of kind of flirting and getting to know each other on the train. And then the first act of this movie, I guess, kind of ends as they arrive in rural England at this creepy train station. And yeah, anything did you want to call out in this introductory segment, John, before we move on to the actual Horror Hospital?

So the train, the guy at the train station is also feeding young people to Horror Hospital so they can conduct their experiments on them. But the whole thing sort of reminded me of Phantasm. How about that? Like the creepy old guy and like, I don't know. I mean, the movie is not like Phantasm at all, but you know what I mean? It has this vibe. It has this weird contraption and these creepy old people who are creepier than you should ever be comfortable with. I don't know. The whole thing just sort of gave me that kind of feeling. Yeah.

At the end of this discussion, John, you're going to ask if this movie talks about the divide between rural and urban.

Correct.

So I want to jump on that question in advance a little bit here and say, so obviously, this is your classic horror movie setup of like you're leaving the world of civilization and you're going out into the boondocks, where anything could happen. But in Britain, when you go into the boondocks, you find super wealthy, creepy people. In American horror, you find super poor redneck stereotypes instead. So maybe we can put a pin in discussing if that means anything.

Yeah, because it reminds me of the plague of the zombies. Also, a creepy guy who lives in the middle of nowhere.

Yeah. I don't know. Do you find creepy, super rich guys living in the swamps of the south when you go off the beaten trail?

I don't think so. I think there's something about British aristocracy and the sort of, again, with all of Britain's problems, their aristocracy who used to live in these giant country homes has sort of collapsed, and these weird houses are now slaughterhouses or some other bizarre thing, that the twisted aristocracy was doing. You know what I mean? It's a symbol, I think.

Well, we did see Revenge of the Zombies set in the swamp of Louisiana.

That's right.

But I don't think that was someone who was from there. I think that's someone who was hiding there.

I think you're right.

Yeah.

Maybe that's the difference.

In a couple of decades apart too, so.

Yes.

Okay. But at any rate, they make their way to Brittleworth Manor. The only significant thing that happens on their trip, and along the way, like they're flirting and stuff, so it's obviously they're going to fall in love, is we meet some sinister masked motorcyclists. We're going to learn later that Dr. Storm employs a whole troupe of identically dressed motorcyclists in leather outfits and wearing their motorcycle helmets, as is errand boys and guards and soldiers. Yeah.

They're one detail short of looking intimidating.

Yes.

That detail is, instead of having a dark visor on their full coverage motorcycle helmet, they've removed the visor and somebody has put some ski goggles on their faces with the strap on the outside of the helmet and they end up looking ridiculous. They're all dressed in black leather with this bright white helmet, and if they just put a sunshade visor, they'd look really badass, but now they look like dorks because they have the ski visor on.

They do, yes, you're right, they do fail to exude real menace.

They're also all short and skinny, like, sorry, I'm not trying to denigrate anybody, but like none of them are physically intimidating.

We don't know it, but we've met our movies' first zombies.

Yes.

We can't see under those helmets and goggles, but these are the zombie slaves of Dr. Storm. That's right. At any rate, these motorcyclists, the zombie motorcyclists escort Jason and Judy to Brittleworth Manor, which is creepy, it's empty, it looks abandoned, but they are let in by Frederick. This is the dwarf henchman that we met at the very beginning, who was in the car that decapitated those two people running away. He lets them in and introduces them quickly to Aunt Harris. So Judy's aunt is not only here, but she is helping run the show. She's like the receptionist who greets you on the way in, and she maybe manages the estate or something like that. Her role is a little bit vague. We learned a couple of interesting things here. First, Aunt Harris is surprised that Judy is here. Judy had written to her aunt saying, hey, I'm going to come visit you. We learned at this scene that Aunt Harris had written Judy back saying, no, don't come here. But the letter was not sent because Frederick, the little henchman, didn't send it for some reason. He either screwed up or he didn't send it on purpose.

But it was interesting because they exchanged letters, and she was like, I'm going to come out, and then the last letter was like, well, you know it, don't come out. It just seemed very strange for that one letter to be the whole problem anyway. And they've never met also is key.

That's right, yes. So Judy was not really supposed to be here. Despite the appearance of this manner of being completely abandoned, Aunt Harris tells them that there is only one room available for them, so they're gonna have to share a room.

That's right.

Which they do, and this leads to our movie spending some time ogling naked Judy, and she and Jason make out and can vort, and I don't know, I mean, anything more to say about that?

No, but I think, we talked about this a while ago. I think it's gonna be a thing throughout the 70s. It's sexual exploitation, horror and gore exploitation right next to each other, and we now separate those things in our movies in a way that we didn't before. Like even through the 80s where you would see half naked women in slasher films, where we're closely combining those two things. There can be a horror movie with sexual tension, but we don't do it in the same way we were arguing the female form and it's salacious.

That is very well put, and that's part of the discomfort of watching a movie like this in our modern era, is I have seen a lot of horror. I am not really used to highly sexualized horror or sexuality or sexualization being just right mixed in there with the horror. It makes it uncomfortable to a modern viewer, I'll say that.

It does, and it's like, let's just slap those two things together. It's a surprise when a movie does it now because we have gotten over it.

Yeah. We do get an iconic horror moment here. Judy is in the shower, and somebody sneaks in while she's washing her hair or whatever like that, which is a thing we've seen in a million movies. I'm curious. I don't know the answer to this question. I should have done some research. Do you know where was the first shower scene scare?

Oh, I wonder.

Psycho famously has a scary shower scene, right?

That's 1960, yeah.

Was that 60? Do you think that was the first? I feel like you couldn't have gone too much earlier than that, and had it be allowed in a film, right?

Yeah, I don't know. Anyway, we wanted to look up.

The one in this movie is very classic. It is not only a horror movie shower scare, but it is a horror movie fake out, also a cliché because it's actually just Jason.

Wearing a knight's helmet with the visor down.

That's right.

Then they make out and he's wearing the helmet. I can't believe that was comfortable for Judy.

There's a lot, but they decide they're going to go down to dinner, and this is where the horror movie part of this all kicks in. Because John, there are about a dozen other people down there at the dinner table, but why is this not like a warm and comfortable evening dinner for Judy and Jason?

Because they're all pale looking. They look like zombies, and they all have an identical stitch or scar above their left eye, and none of them speak, and they all stare straightforward, and the only thing on the table are empty plates and glasses of green wine. Thank God, this movie is in color.

This is a pretty effectively creepy scene, I'd say. I want to call out the pieces of this movie that made me feel a shiver of fear or tension.

What I love about this scene though, and the whole movie is, at no point is Dr. Storm or Aunt Harris trying to, they'll talk over it like nothing's going on, but they're making zero effort to make it seem like nothing sinister is going on. They're just like, let's invite them to dinner with the zombies and give them some green wine. Let's just cut to the chase. Who needs subtlety?

Oh, I forgot to mention, while they were being showed to their room, Jason and Judy saw several get out of here type of glimpses at what's going on here. At one point, as they're walking down the hall, first of all, an obvious zombie steps out and walks in front of them. He's got that trademark scar on his head and he looks all dazed. Then they look into a side room and there is a blood-drenched cot or bed in one of the guest rooms. Yeah, I don't know, man. This is where for me, I started realizing how much this movie was leaning into the camp side of things. Because I started typing down how dumb and fake all of this stuff was. Then after a couple of minutes of this, you realize like, okay, I get it. The movie is in on it. This is all supposed to be pretty dumb, right?

Yeah.

You know what is interesting about this to me? First of all, can we just take a step back and talk about the nudity?

Yeah.

That's very British, right? Americans have always been prudish about nudity, but as far back as I can remember, certainly the 80s, you could have nudity on the TV in Britain after 10 o'clock. It was just a thing that they did. So I don't know how salacious this actually is. But secondly, that sort of camp and nudity, this is not what it's like, but it reminds you of Benny Hill, right? It's just goofy and it loves being goofy and not taking itself seriously. But the actors, or at least our lead actor, Michael Gough, is taking it very seriously. So I don't know, there's just something about the camp, everyone's super committed to it.

Yeah, and by the time this dinner table scene happens, it's so over the top, like you're in a horror movie. You just have to embrace it at that point. So at the dinner table, all these zombies are just silently sitting there until one of them starts abruptly screaming hysterically. So whatever treatment Dr. Storm did didn't quite take with this one. Some of those motorcycle guys rush in and holler off, and Judy and Jason to their credit get up and they're like, okay, we're going to go back to our room. This isn't very fun.

They do say like, okay, we want to leave now. They're not complete idiots.

No, they are ready to leave at this point, which they're probably doing better than the protagonists of a lot of even better horror films that we have seen. So back in their room, they turn on the faucet in their sink, and for no reason at all, blood gushes out of the faucet.

I think they try to explain it away like the motorcycle guys or the henchmen has dumped a body in the cistern in the basement or something.

Is that why? In the attic, yeah.

In the attic. Okay, that's it.

That's what feeds the sinks, and so it's got blood in the water and that feeds through the plumbing.

Because I think in an old house like this, there's no plumbing from the outside. They're collecting and generating their own water, and so there's a cistern in the attic, and why they threw the body in there knowing that it would come out. I have to say, Judy's scream is okay, but we've heard better screams. She does it a lot.

When Judy screams, we've talked in this podcast about the difference between a real scream and a scream where you're just yelling, ah, really loud. She yells, ah, really loud. So, I mean, I don't blame her. It would be hard not to do that if you were fake screaming. Okay, yes. But then Dr. Storm arrives in, he arrives up at their room, just as they're gasping at the blood coming out of that faucet. Thank you so much, you two, for explaining how that was actually logical. I did wonder about that. There was a random cutaway scene to like a body in a blood-filled tub, so I guess they were assuming I knew more about British plumbing in the 70s.

And I think these are the bodies from the opening.

But Dr. Storm arrives up at their room. He is in a crazy wheelchair. It's like a regular, nice, comfortable chair with wheels on it. Like it's not like a wheelchair wheelchair. It's like a chair that they put wheels on. And he is just as sinister as it is possible to be. He tells them that they can't leave, but he tells them if they stay in the room, they'll be safe. That is not true. That does not turn out to be true. And then, I mean, Dr. Storm just leaves having done that. Judy and Jason have sex. And then Jason has the great idea, both of them have the great idea that they're going to get up and sneak around the manor that night.

Super good idea. You forgot about his big tell that he's a villain on top of everything else. He always wears black gloves and at every opportunity, he cracks his knuckles.

Yes. It's this incredibly exaggerated cracking noise. It sounds like his bones are snapping, so yes. Yeah, he does that in basically every scene.

There are at least three scenes I can think of off the top of my head, where they just zoom on in his hands and he goes, crack, and then the scene begins.

Yeah. All right. I'm going to start skipping over some stuff, guys, because a lot of just incident happens here.

None of it's unique, right? I'm not trying to talk over you, but Judy gets caught, they both get caught, they've got to escape, none of that is surprising.

Yeah. They both sneak around at night and they both get caught.

We do want to talk about the thing that Judy sees, don't we?

Yes, absolutely. While Judy is roaming around at night, she stumbles into a room full of zombies.

Yes.

She comes across a room where maybe a dozen of these lobotomized patients are all just lying totally still in their beds.

Yeah. I've took a note, this scene in the ward is actually really working.

Yes.

Now, for all the camp, this bit is a little chilling.

So Judy sees all the zombies, Jason does his own exploring, and the end result of all this is that Judy gets captured. We don't know what happens to her, and Jason gets knocked out. But Jason isn't knocked out by one of those motorcycle zombies. He's knocked out by something new. John, do you want to attempt to describe the thing that attacks Jason?

Yeah. It's like a giant pile of melting flesh.

Clay face.

Clay face. It's like clay face. Actually, the villain it reminded me of is from the New Teen Titans, Plasmus. He just looks like the blob has been moved into human form. But yes, it looks like clay face after clay face can't really control his form anymore. It looks like skin that is melting. I think it's supposed to look like burned skin, but what it ends up looking like is a giant fleshy monster.

Yeah. My notes, I called it a goo monster.

It looks like a goo monster. Yes.

I thought it was a walking mud bath.

Yeah. There is something besides zombies lurking around in Horror Hospital, in other words. But we're not going to find out more about what that is until the end of this movie. But the next day Jason wakes up, Judy is gone, she's been in prison to elsewhere, and out the window of his room. Again, John, you said they aren't even trying to act like, the bad guys aren't even trying to act like this isn't a creepy horror vill because just out in the open.

Can we talk about this scene really quick?

Yeah.

The travel agent who's been sending these people to the manor to get turned into zombies, shows up insisting he get paid more money, essentially blackmailing them. And they have an exchange and then he leaves and he's, I don't know how he's going to get home.

He starts walking.

Like, did he have a car? I don't know. Anyway, the car starts, the car with the giant sword on the side starts to drive after him and he smiles and like tips his hat as if they're about to give him a lift. It's amazing.

Yes.

And then the arm comes out and splurge. There's no way. Can I just say, the car is not tall enough. Okay. Everybody would have to be the same height for this trick to work and the car is not tall enough. It would probably cut off the top of most people's heads, but not that I don't know. Anyway.

I had to stop myself from Googling the height of this car to try and figure this out. This blade is at whatever level it needs to be to cut off the head of whoever is chasing. We'll just put it that way.

What I love about it is you don't see the canvas windsock that the bloody heads fall into or the knife, like when it's just driving around normally. It's just in this one scene. It's amazing.

Somehow the windsock that catches the heads is my favorite thing in this entire movie.

Because they never clean it. It's always bloody.

Anyway, Jason sees them kill the travel agent from his room. Like I said, they're not even trying to do this on the sly anymore. Frederick the henchman comes into Jason's room for some reason. We have our first audio clip. Let's hear Jason confronting Frederick the henchman.

Are you people going out your minds?

Why? What have you done with Judy?

What was going on with that girl last night? And what goes on downstairs behind those locked doors, eh?

It leads down to the gymnasium and then...

Yes, and then what? And then Dr. Storm's laboratory.

What laboratory?

What goes on in there?

That's where they do the operation.

What operation?

I don't know. Oh, something to do with their head. There's a lot of electrical equipment in there.

Didn't I just see that guy Pollock being slaughtered down there in the driveway?

Yeah, he must be difficult.

Let me go. Let me go.

I'm just as much a prisoner here as you are.

All right. So we have a couple of things set up there. The most important being that Frederick doesn't really want to be here.

Can I just say this? I can't believe I'm saying this. He is the character who makes the biggest journey in this film.

Yes.

The idea of anyone making a narrative journey in this film is just inherently funny.

Yeah, he does.

So Dr. Storm wheels in, accompanied as always by those motorcycle guards, and he-

There's always two of them.

Yes.

Then there's two more, and then there's two more. There must be at least eight or 12, but they only ever show two. I wonder why.

Yeah, I think so. So Dr. Storm shows up, and he takes Jason on a grand tour of Horror Hospital. They get out of the fakest looking elevator I've ever seen. Yes. You just have to- I don't think I could describe it. It is like a grade school stage play elevator here. Anyway, and he shows Jason around the gymnasium we just heard about, and this is where all the zombies are kept. So as they walk around, the zombies are all down here and they're kind of like working out.

I was going to say, exercising zombies might be a first. Remind me that I said that at the end, Brad.

So this is where we learn kind of the mechanics of what's going on. They have a machine down there that can give these lobotomized zombies who are all young men and women, and it's suggested or even outright stated. These are all young people basically lured here by that travel agent, young hippies basically. They're all mindless and affectless. They don't respond to pain. They don't talk or anything like that. But there is a big computer, Aunt Harris is down here too by the way, with a bunch of buttons and each button is, they can push a button and then the zombie does it. So like in that Avengers episode, each button is like assigned to a really specific physical maneuver.

Like a backflip.

Yeah. It just seems like it's not going to scale very well. So there's a button they push and then a zombie does a backflip on command. They show off the zombies for quite a while. Then Dr. Storm is just like, yeah, next I'm going to lobotomize Judy and then you. So Jason's like, not if I can help it. So Jason makes a run for it. He breaks out of a window and he goes sprinting off. And we get this movie, one of this movie's big kind of action sequences. It says, I would describe it as an interminable chase. And what's really-

There's one great part in it though.

Yes, what's really funny about this is, so Jason jumps out and Dr. Storm doesn't seem bothered at all as Jason hoofs it across the countryside. And Dr. Storm's like, he said something in effect of like, you'll never get away or something. Dr. Storm is putting a lot of faith in exactly two of his motorcycle henchmen to like on foot chase Jason down. And like they don't, they're not like super humanly fast or strong, they're just like regular people. So I would say Jason has like a 50%, a good 50% chance of getting away here, but he does not.

And he does kill one of them by putting them in quicksand. So did you know in rural England that there's quicksand in the middle of a forest?

I didn't know it was in the forest, but this did make me think of at least one Sherlock Holmes story where the bad guy gets sucked into a bog. We call them bogs when they're in England, don't we? Okay, you're right. I don't know. What is this? Is this a real thing?

I don't think so.

Okay.

Well, this one is smoking, this bog.

Okay, it's a smoking bog. So Jason beats one of the motorcycle guys and throws them in the bog and it sinks under there. The bog, this is some clever foreshadowing, by the way. And then there's this super long sequence where some more motorcycle guys show up and they just kind of knock Jason around for what seems like five minutes. And Jason does not put up a very dignified fight. I just got to say, in some ways that made this feel maybe more realistic. They drag him back to the lab and this time they lock him into a cell so he can't escape again. And they say, and Dr. Storm says, well, you know what, let's hear what Dr. Storm says.

It's very simple, you see. We make an incision. Yes, Jason, rather more than an incision. A tunnel into the mind, through which I can grab a little thought with my psychic hands or put one there. Make it serve my purpose or your purpose. Make you think that my purpose is your purpose. But I need more subjects to find the missing link. It'll be Millie's turn next, then Judy's, and your turn will come soon.

So there we have it. This is done. If you can't tell from the sounds, it's a psychedelic dream sequence scene.

Yeah. Do we know why Dr. Storm wants to, I guess he explains it later maybe, like what he is doing or why he's doing it?

I'm afraid that I know and I don't know how I'm going to explain it in a PG-13 way.

Well, do your best.

You mean what he's doing?

Like why he's doing this whole thing.

I think we do sort of learn that. I was hoping to confirm from you guys what his motive was.

Well, let's compare notes when we get there. We're almost there.

Okay. Yeah. Believe it or not, we're creeping in on the end of this movie. Okay. Let's wait a little bit longer to talk about Dr. Storm's motivations because we get a big scene later where we get some backstory filmed in for us. You heard Dr. Storm mentioned a girl named Millie. This is just like another victim that they have there. She's just there so that there is someone in line before Judy and Jason to get lobotomized, so they have time to escape basically. I liked this part because this is the part where Aunt Harris declares that she wants out of this. I always enjoy it when a good henchman is like, I've had enough of this, I'm out of here. Aunt Harris makes the very reasonable point to Dr. Storm of like, you're getting sloppy, this won't go on very much longer because it's too easy for people to track these kids to your place. Dr. Storm is very dismissively, and we might revisit this in our closing questions a little. He's very dismissively like, no, no one cares about these people, no one notices them because Dr. Storm is used to basically using as his victims these kind of marginalized nobodies. But now that he is attracting modern kids with social networks and boyfriends and girlfriends and families that will miss them, it's suggested that this scheme isn't really going to work for very much longer. Aunt Harris realizes this and she decides that she's going to leave and take Judy with her. You guys, knowing everything that she does, why does Aunt Harris announce this to Dr. Storm before just leaving?

I had the same question. What are you doing? He's going to smother you in your sleep or something.

Yeah, he's utterly amoral. Of course he's going to kill you and that's exactly what happens. What amazing thing is the end of Aunt Harris, John?

It's the giant clay face flesh monster, right? That's right, yes.

It bursts in on her while she's packing away. This scene is kind of an artistically interesting scene.

It's weird, but think about this creature is, it looks like they took a person and just piled a bunch of clay on it. That's why Brad said it looks like clay face and it just looks weird, but it kind of works. It looks hulking and huge, I think is what it is.

It works because they are doing the smart horror movie thing of not letting it be on the screen for more than a split second at a time. You have just enough time to get an impression of it and then your brain fills in the details. I think if the camera lingered on it for five seconds straight, it would look like the stupidest thing you've ever seen in your life. At any rate, Aunt Harris' prediction has come true though, because a random new quasi protagonist shows up into this movie. It's another young man, he's named Abraham, and he's come looking for his girlfriend, Millie, who we just heard is in here and in line to be lobotomized. In fact, I think by the time this has happened, she's already been lobotomized. So Aunt Harris was correct. This whole gig is going to come crashing down soon because it's too easy for people to track down their loved ones who have gone missing. Anyway, but they grab Abraham and they throw him in the cell with Jason. I think he's here just to like, I don't know why he's really in the movie.

I think he's here to help Jason escape.

I think he's just here so that Jason will have a little more plausible when Jason eventually escapes, but he's locked up with Jason. Judy is locked up and she's like in line after Millie to get lobotomized. And this is where that poignant figure Frederick makes his big narrative evolution from evil villain sidekick to reluctant hero. So Frederick decides like out of the blue to help Jason escape. I feel like the movie skipped five minutes of them working this out with Frederick, but whatever. Frederick drugs the guards outside of Jason and Abraham's cell. This scene goes on forever.

I think this is supposed to be funny.

I think so.

There's a scene of a little person trying to move two drugged motorcycle thugs on his own. It's interminable, but I get what they were trying to go for.

I think so. You could squint and imagine in an alternate timeline this being a funny scene.

Yes. Yeah.

So Jason and Abraham get out, and they race out. They go find Judy. They find zombified Millie. But Dr. Storm rolls in, because this was the stupidest escape attempt I've ever seen in my life. They move into an adjacent room, and they're instantly caught. So this is where we get Dr. Storm's backstory. I think Brad asked you to grab a little bit of this extremely long convoluted backstory. Can we hear a little bit about Dr. Storm's tragic past?

In the late 20s, before Stalin came to power, I was a disciple of academician Pavlov.

Wow.

Then when Stalin did come to power, he installed many young scientists. Stupid adolescents who didn't know what they were doing. Very soon, my laboratories were overrun by these young Turks, and I was made to leave.

Being told what to do by these stupid, stupid.

So I went to Finland where I started my own private zoo.

So this goes on for a really long time.

The backstory does.

But Dr. Storm's deal is, he was a scientist under Stalin who resented, who was pushed out by younger scientists. I tried to think and think about if this could mean anything, but I came up blank, John. Do you have anything about this Stalin connection?

I think the connection we're supposed to take is that he is later about the young people who took his livelihood, and so he's taking it out on British young people who have long hair and smell bad.

I guess so, yeah. I mean, the overriding thing we get is the incredible contempt for young people, essentially. There's more to the story. He met Aunt Harris. Aunt Harris ran a brothel in post-war Europe, and so as his experiments, he started out doing experiments about behavior and reflex on animals. But then when he upgraded to doing it on humans, he needed supplies of humans, so Aunt Harris started funneling forgettable people who wouldn't be missed that came through her brothel to him. So she's been feeding him bodies or victims all of this time. Stop me if I get too much in the weeds here. He does set something up that doesn't make sense now, but will make a little bit more sense when we get our big revelation about Dr. Storm later. There was one of his early labs caught on fire, and he was badly wounded. I think we're meant to think, oh, that's why he's in a wheelchair this whole movie. So we're going to learn a little bit more about that in just a moment. Because believe it or not, we're right on the cusp of the end of this movie. But this is also where we find his motivation of why he's making these zombies. So I'm going to go, I feel gross saying this, but I'm going to take one for the team and you guys can tell me if I'm on base. Is it correct that Dr. Storm is trying to make a zombie that will sleep with him?

I think so, but also I don't know, because he goes on this long tirade about how he created the zombies and he was trying to get them to have sex with each other, but they just couldn't quite figure it out.

Yes.

Yeah, I think so, but I mean, is there no world domine?

I think yes, because several times in his monologue, he looked at, Judy said, I used to be attractive to women. He said that multiple times, meaning he is not now, and that affects him. He's trying to make a zombie that will have sex. So it's one, making a zombie, two, making a zombie that will have sex, three, making a zombie that will have sex with him.

Yes. I think that's a lot of work.

I think that's correct. He does mention constantly that women won't go near him anymore since his injury, or because he's older. In a minute, we're going to learn the real reason why women won't go near him.

This is the most petty thing though. He went to a lot of trouble here, and I was thinking, zombie army, he's training them to be fit, he's going to take over Britain? Nope.

He's going to take out all the young scientists who took his lab, you know, something like that.

It's nothing like that. It's like an incredibly tasteless version of the Bride of Frankenstein, right?

We should also add, there was a first in this monologue. We had full frontal nudity of both a woman and a man.

That's right.

Which surprised me.

When we have a flashback of zombies trying to figure out how to have sex, it's a little awkward. This whole thing is very awkward.

They're rolling around in a sandbox.

Yes. Hang on, listeners, we're almost done. From here, this is the end game now. Jason and Abraham, they're imprisoned again, and they escape again with the help of Frederick, the little person. There's a lot of detail I'm skipping over. But the tragic part is that Frederick is killed in the process of helping them escape.

Yes, but he has his moment.

He does. He has a very cinematic death, where he's like, did I die a hero or something like that? And they're like, yes, you did, Frederick. You died a hero. And he dies, though, right as he's about to tell them some sort of sinister secret that we don't know yet about Dr. Storm.

It's the worst. The thing is, he's actually, ugh.

I hope when it's my time to go that I do something like that.

If you just spit it out.

Yeah.

Wait, Andy, you want to, at that moment, you want to give half a statement and leave your family with a mystery that they can never solve? I do.

That's exactly what I want to do.

Yes. I want my last words to be like, this whole time, I was actually a, or something like that.

I was an operative for. Not to go too far off the topic, but there's a podcast I listened to recently, and there's a man in New York who does experiences. One of the things he does is he helps people with their funerals, and he makes them experiences for people as opposed to a celebration. So, John, you'll like this. A group of friends who have been friends since college played board games. Once a year they got together after college and they played board games for a weekend. He's the first to die. He died young from a cancer. When they get together six months later, he and this man created a board game that recreated all the games they had played and all the players played it together.

Oh, wow.

It started off on a rabbit hole. Carry on, Andy. Let's get back to Horror Hospital.

You know what?

I think it's to the credit of this movie that Frederick's tragic death has spurred such thoughts in you.

I'll put a link in the show notes. It's not any present invisible, did that episode.

So Jason and Abraham run around. They rescue Judy, who's in a different cell, and they start trashing the lab, like breaking all the equipment. As they do, the zombies start kind of going haywire. They're thrashing around, and in this movie, the motorcycle guys are either totally invincible, or if the plot needs Jason to be able to easily beat them, he easily beats them. In this case, they beat a bunch of more motorcycle guys, and then they stumble upon this movie's big twist. So they stumble into a room where, well, what do they see when they first stumble into this room, John? They see something like hanging on a chair.

Yeah. So they see Dr. Storm's wheelchair, and hanging from the back is a mask of Dr. Storm's face.

Yes. It is the fakest looking mask possible of his face.

Yeah.

But yes. So Dr. Storm has been wearing a mask of his face.

Yes.

Then the camera pans and we see the goo monster in bed with Zombie Millie. Yeah. It was gross on every possible level.

Also, he's gigantic, just physically. So he bears no resemblance to the skinny actor. He takes off the mask and inflates to double the size.

I was imagining that mask holding in all that mud. Like how much pressure is under that mask?

Dr. Storm is the goo monster. So in that lab accident, I guess he was so horrifically burned that he turned into the goo monster. Now it does make more sense why he has trouble getting dates, just to be totally fair.

It's not just that he's in a wheelchair. No.

It's not just that he's a supervillain.

So that's really gross. And I would use a word like tasteless to describe that entire element of this film. But goo form Dr. Storm jumps out a window and runs out into the countryside for no clear reason. Our heroes escape.

Well, there's a reason, Andy, but it's not his reason. It's the movie's reason.

Oh, right. Oh, right. Yeah. So our movies escape. But John, how are they? They need a way back to town. So what are they going to decide to use to make it get away from the castle? That is turns out to be very important.

Well, fortunately, they have a limousine right there.

Yes. As they're escaping from Brittleworth Manor, and they're driving this limousine, and they see the goo monster running down the road in front of them, what feature of that car do they remember?

Out comes the giant blade and the canvas windsock.

That's right. They run him down with the decapitating car blade, and it works, and they kill Dr. Storm. His body falls into the bog, and his head goes into that windsock, which is very funny. We get a gory look at the, a fake gory look at the head for a few minutes, and then they chuck that into the bog, and then they all escape back to town, and are even joking around with Jason kept Dr. Storm's face mask and is using it to play pranks on them.

Don't they kill the train clerk?

Yes. It's all ending. Everything is fine. The evil is gone forever. Right, John?

Well, no, there's still that train clerk who was... No, wait.

So let me ask this question. Did they kill him or...

Well, so...

Oh, right. A hand bursts out of the bog.

Exactly. That's what I was trying to bait you into saying. The very end, right at the end credits in classic horror movie fashion, I think we first saw this hinted at in Plan 9 from Outer Space. And we've maybe seen it once or twice since. But the hand bursting out of the ground is a very Slasher movie thing. I think every Jason or Freddie movie ends with it or some variant on it.

Carrie, yes.

And then I guess the same person that was like, we really need to get a detailed realistic post-war backstory for Aunt Harris and her interactions with Dr. Storm was like, but the audience will just go crazy if they don't find out what happened to that creepy train master guy. Yeah. So this movie's last shot is actually of him of that creepy train master dead on the train tracks. So I guess we're supposed to take that the goo monster came out and killed him. Is that right?

Or did the kids?

Did the kids kill him? Okay. Someone killed the creepy train master and so everyone connected with this sinister Horror Hospital conspiracy is dead except for Dr. Storm who maybe survived and is going to appear in a sequel, which I pray to all the forces of goodness in this universe. It didn't happen. So that's a wrap on Horror Hospital. Guys, before we get into our questions, how are we feeling at this point in the movie?

I was enjoying the silliness of the whole thing. I think we said this previously, I said this thing about the frozen dead, that had the head on the table and the wall of animated arms. When Brad invited me to do this podcast, this is the sort of thing that I was really expecting. We get it.

I'm sorry it took 40 years to get here.

40 years in like 80 movies, but we got here, yes. I had similar thoughts and we can impact them further in a wrap up question. John, let's go right into our traditional closing questions, where we ask some questions to try and place Horror Hospital in the zombie movie family tree, if you will. In Horror Hospital, is there a hero party?

Yeah, it's a bunch of hippie kids. Yeah, it's Judy, Jason, Abraham, and to a lesser extent, Millie.

And Frederick.

And Frederick.

How do they do?

How many survive?

Jason, Abraham, and Judy survive. Yes.

All right. Tell us about the zombie. What strain or type of zombie are we dealing with in Horror Hospital?

So these are science-created zombies, but they're very fit. So they've lost their minds, but they're created because parts of their brains are removed. So they're like lobotomized zombies. But they're clearly made to look like zombies.

Yes. And they're alive. They're living people. Yes. And they appear to have just normal human powers. They aren't like invulnerable or anything like that. Right. So is there a zombie horde in this movie?

There is. They don't do much except for work out and eat dinner and don't eat dinner.

And sleep in bed.

And sleep in bed.

I will say there are one or two kind of effective scenes where the heroes are in a room full of zombies that are all just sort of standing around doing nothing.

Yeah.

Like it does create a sort of menace. Like what if they all wake up or something?

Yeah.

All right. How are zombies destroyed or killed in this movie?

You destroy the control centers. And that way it's like a creature with the atom brain. If you destroy the computers, then all the zombies stop working.

And Santo versus the zombies.

And Santo versus the zombies. Lest us not forget.

And we already mentioned they aren't super powered. They're just regular human speed.

But they're not fit.

Yeah, they're fit. They're not slow. They can do backflips and stuff if you make them.

But they're not the thugs in this movie. But we think the motorcycle guys are zombies, right?

Yeah, they are. At one point, a helmet, towards the end, someone takes a helmet off one of them, and it's one of the lobotomized people in there. So, yes. Can zombies return to being human? No. Yeah. Whatever is being done to them looks pretty permanent. Poor Millie. Yeah. Alas for Millie. Yeah. Is the world threatened by the zombies?

No. The zombies are more threatened by Dr. Storr.

Zombies is uncomfortable. Zombies is the victims here. Yes. All right, John. At the beginning of this podcast, you identified four pillars of the zombie movie. Let's find out how many of them are in Horror Hospital. John, in Horror Hospital, is there an apocalypse?

There's not.

Is there contagion?

Nope.

Are there tough moral choices?

I don't think so.

Would you call Frederick deciding to turn into a good guy or a tough moral choice?

I think so. Oh, and also Harris having a moral turn. I think those are tough moral choices. But again, it's not in the spirit we intended. But yes.

Yeah. Those are villains making choices that are tough for them. Lastly, John, are there loved ones turning against you?

I don't think so. When the people turn, they just become boring.

I'm surprised that they didn't try to work loved ones turning against you. I mean, they easily could have had Millie attack her old boyfriend or something like that. That seems like that would have been cool and would have been easy for them to do. But as it is, no one really turns against you. So now I'm going to turn it over to you for your 70s questions.

Because this film is all 70s all the time.

Yes.

Does this evoke the terror of crime, lawlessness, and anarchy?

So I don't know about this. How would you answer this, John? I am tempted to say that from Dr. Storm's position, he feels threatened by all the youths of the day, but he's the bad guy. I don't feel like our heroes are threatened by anarchy or crime. If anything, they're threatened by a relic of the old order, of the old aristocracy.

What do you think? I think that the old aristocracy is committing crimes on the young people here, which flipped your question on the head. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what about this one? Does it push boundaries of on-screen violence and sexuality?

It absolutely does.

Yes.

Yes, it's gross, it's tasteless, it's got everything. So I don't know British film all that well, and I don't know 70s British film. I don't know how shocking some of the sex and nudity stuff was or wasn't. There was a casualness about it that suggested to me that I wasn't supposed to be super shocked by it, if that makes sense.

No, I think that the brief nudity, I think would have been less shocking.

Yeah.

But maybe the gore would have been a little bit more shocking.

Maybe the gore was a little shocking.

But again, it would have been shocking to an American audience. I'd be curious to see what the cut was for this. Because again, we're in the era where sex and horror are the same thing and are shown in places you don't see regular movies. You're not going to see it like you see a Final Destination movie.

Yeah. The villain's plan having a base sexual motivation is definitely boundary pushing and gross and uncomfortable. So yes, this movie is pushing those boundaries in every way.

Does it also invoke a divide between new and old generations?

It does. It does so in such an unsubtle manner. I almost don't want to give it credit for doing it, if that makes sense.

Here's one thing I'll say is we've watched a lot of conservative movies about how hippies are evil and stuff and not that these hippies are winners or anything. But clearly that coin is also flipped in this film. It's the authority figures who are clearly the villains here and the hippies are maybe idiots but are trying to escape and survive.

It is often the case that in the movies we've seen so far, I wind up feeling contemptuous towards our young hippie heroes. This was a movie where I started out really disliking Jason. But by the end of the movie, I felt like he had come into his own as a more likable, heroic character. Did you have that experience at all?

I did.

There was an interesting conversation early in the movie, speaking about the divide between younger and older generations, where one of the reasons Judy is traveling out there and has to have her aunt help out with some illegal stuff related to Judy's mom's death. Is there some complications because Judy was an illegitimate child?

That's right.

Do you remember that conversation?

I do.

Yeah. She admits this as if it is a shameful thing about her. Jason says, but nobody cares about that anymore.

Right.

There's a number of little moments like that throughout the movie, I'd say. All right.

Go ahead. Any anxieties about the Vietnam War in this one?

None that I picked up on. You?

No, nothing like that.

Yeah.

But how about anxieties about sexuality, reproduction, bodily autonomy, anxieties over women's bodies?

So yes, absolutely. I mean, there's no getting around it. It's uncomfortable, but he is making zombies. He is making zombies to have sex with them, and that's really uncomfortable and gross. That raises our hackles for all of the reasons, right? It's women being preyed upon. It's the zombies as helpless victims who have no control over what somebody else does with them. Those are all really uncomfortable topics, and this pretty stupid movie hits them pretty effectively.

Yeah. It's trying to be shocking in that way, I think. Yeah. Does it evoke economic anxiety and consumerism gone amok?

I mean, there's a little bit, it's certainly suggested that Jason doesn't have much, that our heroes don't have much in the way of wealth or money. Like one of the reasons he goes on this ill-advised trip is it's incredibly cheap, right? Compared to the other vacations that he's offered. I think it was 25 pounds for a whole week stay at Horror Hospital.

That's right.

That said, I don't think that it really evolves into what I would call a major theme of the film.

That's right. All right, last one, but I think it's a good one. Does this evoke tensions between urban and rural life?

Yes. I jumped ahead on this one earlier. This is another horror movie where somebody leaves the city and goes out into the country. It turns out the country is just a horrible, lawless place of evil and chaos where anything can happen to you. I am curious if there is anything to the idea, if this is a horror trope that looks different in American horror cinema from other horror cinema. As I discussed, at least in modern American horror movies of the last couple of decades, think like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, when you go out into the awful country, you are entering an uncivilized lawless place. In this movie, and I would say in some of the other movies we've seen, when you go out into the country, you are entering into an evil but highly civilized place. You are encountering representatives of the old order here. What do you make of that?

I think it's interesting that they made him a former Soviet scientist.

Yes.

I think they could have done it just with him as the relic of the British Empire, and the feeling that we have now in the 70s about how that was a perverse time, how some people, not everybody, and still not everybody today, but some people felt that England got way out over its skis, and especially young people in England were like, we shouldn't have an empire, you know what I mean?

Yes.

But they lean into a more obvious villain in a Stalinist scientist.

The film also calls back to Voodoo Man, because in Voodoo Man, there's a gas station attendant. That's right. Who would direct women from the city to Bela Lugosi who would then turn them into zombies, much like the ticket taker here at the train station who sends the victims up to the manor.

Yeah. Now I want to do a history of accomplices, right? Because the hills have eyes. I think there's one in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I don't know. I may have to.

Well, it's a whole trope, right? Like someone, you come into the creepy old town and someone points the way, but they're in on it.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, John, we always close with the traditional series of questions, and let's jump right in. Would you and I, John, survive in the zombie world of Horror Hospital?

Well, we're not young and athletic, so I don't think we'd get invited. But let's assume for a moment that we did, probably not.

This is a little tricky. This movie, if you take this movie seriously, there's so many opportunities for them to escape or to get out in some way, and they don't. They flub their escape attempts so badly because the movie needs them to. It's really hard to imagine that you couldn't find some way out of this scenario if it were you. I want to say I might survive on this one. I'm no action hero, but I could do at least as well as Jason, and maybe just 5 percent better, and I think that's all that would be needed.

The only problem is that this place is really isolated, and without a car, it is hard to get away from it.

Yes, that's true.

That's the one thing I'll say.

Yes. All right, John, is Horror Hospital a zombie movie, or is it a movie with zombies?

I think it's a movie with zombies. That's a tough one actually on this one. The zombies are here. I guess it's a zombie movie because the threat is that you will get turned into a zombie. But they're not like the focus. The focus is really on Dr. Storm and his henchman in his car with a blade in it. That's the horror. The zombies are more like unfortunate victims. This is a hard call. What do you think?

I think because I was going to say it's a movie with zombies just because Dr. Storm could be doing something else to his victims. He could just be straight up just murdering them or draining their blood because he's a vampire or anything, and it wouldn't change the plot of the movie really. But his motivations are pretty wrapped up in making zombies. This is the middle ground. I think I'm going to err on the side of it being a movie with zombies, but I don't feel strongly about it.

I would say it's a zombie movie because for the heroes, their whole fear throughout is that they'll be turned into a zombie.

Yeah. That's true.

I suppose, although their fear wouldn't be any different if you were just going to kill them, right? I don't know.

Well, I guess they get a great pain.

But then that makes it a slasher movie, right? Not a zombie movie.

Yeah. They do go to great pains to show how much it sucks to be a zombie.

Yeah. In this movie, it is a fate worse than death to become one of Dr. Storm's zombies. So, okay. Well, you guys have probably convinced me.

We rarely have a difficult time on this question, but I think that's cool.

All right. I am really curious how you're going to answer this next question, John. John, do you recommend this movie, first, to a general audience? And let's assume, I don't think either of us would recommend this movie casually to a coworker, right?

No.

But assume you have a friend that just likes horror movies. Would you recommend this movie generally? And secondly, do you think that Horror Hospital has special interest for the zombie-loving fans of this podcast?

So, if you're a movie fan and you like schlocky horror movies, I would recommend this movie to you. It's very silly. I mean, it has the shortcomings that all sort of cheap B-movies have. It's uncomfortable in a lot of places to a modern audience. However, it is kind of a hoot as a throwback. Now, on the other hand, because the zombie question is so strange and not really central, like maybe my first yes to a general audience and no to a zombie audience? I think so.

Yeah. I think that's about where I'll land. If you are the sort of person, if you heard about the decapitating Carblade and you thought, that sounds hilariously awesome, then you probably should watch this movie.

It's everything you want.

That's it.

I mean, I do not think that modern audiences are primed for the kind of tasteless horror that this represents.

Yeah.

So, I want to, so, that makes me want to say no. But if you can't be horror and you want to see an early example of a film, a film pushing boundaries, it's certainly not a good movie in the sense of acting or dialogue or sensible plot or anything like that.

No.

So, I'll give this a soft yes if you're a horror nerd, and I do not really think it holds much of interest to zombie fans.

No, I don't think so.

Yeah.

All right, Andy. Should your mom watch this movie?

Heck no.

Andy, should you watch this with your mom?

Double heck no. Okay. Well, that means it's time for the scariest part of the episode, and that's where producer Brad reveals to me and John what zombie movie we will be watching next.

Well, we're staying in 1973, and I have a snippet of a trailer to play for you. So here's the trailer.

It's going to be the most important job we've ever done. Flora, we've been robbing tombs for a long time now.

One of these days are going to catch us.

Don't be a coward, August.

I order you, Gloria Irving.

Well, it sounds pretty great.

And here is your poster.

Whoa!

Oh, okay.

La Rebellion de las Muertes, The Rebellion of the Dead.

The English title is Vengeance of the Dead.

Vengeance of the You Dead could almost.

say revolt of the zombies, August, right? Okay, interesting. That's like a kind of sketchy looking zombie here. Don, do you want to describe the poster here?

Yeah. So there's several zombies on the poster. It's dominated in the front by the painting of a man who looks green, and it looks like the side of his scalp has been scraped off, and the other side has black hair on it. There's clearly a female here, and then there's three zombies. They actually look like women descending on her with their arms outstretched as if to strangle her. So this looks pretty good.

Yeah. I would say this is promising.

This is what we're here for.

Yes, exactly.

The main name you should pay attention to is Paul Nashie, who's the Spanish actor who's known as the Spanish Lon Chaney. So it's a big deal for him to make it to Zombie Strains.

That must be him in the front.

That would be him.

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