doom asylum

There's really no defense for a movie like Doom Asylum (1987) - a prefabricated cult horror/comedy that typifies the straight-to-video market of the era. With a cast of ex-centerfolds (Patty Mullen), genre veterans (Ruth Collins), up and comers (Kristin Davis of Sex and the City) and a slew of one-and-dones, the film should have simply vanished into VHS purgatory. But there's something so left-of-center about director Richard Friedman's slice of '80s cheese that it survives as a bizarre shared experience, like a cinematic chain letter no one wants to end.

After a car accident, Mitch Hansen winds up on the coroner's table. Trouble is, he's not quite dead. Mad with grief over the death of his hot girlfriend, he kills the technicians about to cut him open and takes up residence in an abandoned asylum where he become the stuff of local legend. 10 years later, a pack of wandering partygoers fall right into his lap, providing a new supply of victims for his creative kill streak.

Produced mostly by refugees from the adult film industry, Doom Asylum strings together the loosest of plots in an obvious attempt to brand its villain - "The Coroner" - as a Freddy Krueger-type who cracks wise as he cracks open skulls...or various other body parts. Ironically, that's the least interesting part of the movie, which gets more entertainment value out of its mis-matched group of miscreants who endlessly wander the halls. Rick Marx's script fills their mouths the purposefully inane bits of dialogue and lame running jokes. The end result is characters so ridiculous you can't help but take them under your wing.

Sure, there's some artistry behind the low-rent special effects and the novelty of watching cute-as-button Kristin Davis walk around in a tight one-piece bathing suit never gets old. But Doom Asylum's bread and butter is the anything-goes aesthetic, something that's been lost in an era of streaming horror films that look as good as most major releases. Even as a direct-to-video dead end, Doom Asylum has left a memorable tombstone.

Arrow Video's Blu-ray looks better than you'd ever expect, offering a widescreen option (the film was shot with theatrical exhibition in mind) or 1:33:1 aspect ratio.