11 October 2024
Don't Look in the Basement (1973)
95 min.
Directed by S. F. Brownrigg.
With Rosie Holotik, Anne MacAdams, Bill McGhee, Camilla Carr, Gene Ross, Jessie Lee Fulton, Michael Harvey, Jessie Kirby, Hugh Feagin, Betty Chandler.
Low rent grindhouse-asylum flick.

New psychiatric nurse Charlotte (Holotik) arrives at the Stephens Sanitarium...but finds the boss she expected to meet, Dr. Stephens, has just been murdered by the resident mental patients.

Talk about your first day on the new job!

But as Charlotte attempts to go with the flow, she finds her wards incredibly difficult to manage. And the new interim headmaster, Dr. Geraldine Masters (MacAdams) is a little strange too.

What could be the disturbing secret at work at Stephens Sanitarium? Could it be Dr. Stephen's unusually lax policy of letting his mentally deranged patients act out their internal frustrations? Possibly.

Some good scenes and an extremely gory ending can't make up for the fact that this feels like an early John Waters film at times.

Occasionally unintentionally funny, and you won't be too surprised when you find out that the doctor (who seems kind of loopy throughout anyway) is actually a patient.

Oops. Sorry.

Also known as The Forgotten, as well as Death Ward #13.

The director here would go on to helm Don't Open the Door in 1974, and Keep My Grave Open in 1980.

© copyright 1998-present | The Terror Trap; www.terrortrap.com | all rights reserved