Do you remember the nightmare sequence in Billy Wilder's 'The Lost Weekend (1945),' when Don Birman watches a bat decapitate a helpless mouse? Film experiences don't get much more lurid than that, but Samuel Fuller's 'Shock Corridor (1963)' somehow manages to maintain this intensity for 101 minutes. Everything is so grimly and determinedly over-the-top that you occasionally feel like laughing, but then Fuller grips you by the throat and doesn't allow you to exhale. A natural precursor to films like Milos Forman's 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975),' this B-movie exploitation flick is intense and nasty, deliberately pushing viewers outside of their comfort zone. This is the sort of low-brow nonsense that could never have been produced by a major studio, yet Fuller relishes his low-budget creative freedom. He obviously had a lot of fun inventing characters so incredibly outrageous that audiences would flock to see them there's an overweight would-be opera singer, a war veteran who thinks he's a Civil War general, an African-American white supremacist and even a roomful of ravenous nymphomaniacs!
Like any good B-movie should, 'Shock Corridor (1963)' builds itself upon a shaky and unlikely premise. Johnny Barrett (Peter Breck, who reminds me of a young Martin Sheen) is a hot-shot journalist with aspirations towards the Pullitzer Prize. In order to crack an unsolved murder in a psychiatric hospital, Barrett offers to have himself committed, fooling police and doctors into believing that he has made incestuous advantages towards his sister actually his long-time girlfriend, Cathy (Constance Towers). There are, of course, unaddressed hurdles in this ridiculous scheme: why would the authorities never bother to verify Cathy's true identity? However, once Barrett gets inside the mental ward, we're so fascinated by its peculiar brand of loonies that we don't ask any further questions. The supporting performances vary greatly in subtlety and credibility, but there's no doubt that they hold our attention, prone to unexpected violent outbursts and momentary reclamation of their sanity. Barrett's murder investigation is straightforward and episodic: he merely befriends each of the three witnesses in turn, and waits for them to come to their senses.
This being my first film from Samuel Fuller, I'm not sure whether or not his films typically have underlying political messages. However, 'Shock Corridor' is certainly a confronting critique of the mental health system; indeed, how can the mentally ill ever recover if even a sane man loses his sanity after just several months in such an institution? I was tempted to think that Barrett's mental deterioration was based on the findings of the disastrous Stanford Prison Experiment, in which human behaviour was drastically influenced by one's appointed status as either a "guard" or a "prisoner." Then I remembered that Zimbardo's study wasn't undertaken until 1971, which makes Fuller's conclusions even more audacious and groundbreaking. The film was shot by cinematographer Stanley Cortez, who also worked on 'The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)' and 'The Night of the Hunter (1955),' who superbly blends the raw, gritty aesthetic of low-budget schlock with the distorted, almost-surreal visuals of big-budget film noir. Call it bold, call it outrageous, call it ridiculous; but there's no doubting that Sam Fuller is a director to watch.
Like any good B-movie should, 'Shock Corridor (1963)' builds itself upon a shaky and unlikely premise. Johnny Barrett (Peter Breck, who reminds me of a young Martin Sheen) is a hot-shot journalist with aspirations towards the Pullitzer Prize. In order to crack an unsolved murder in a psychiatric hospital, Barrett offers to have himself committed, fooling police and doctors into believing that he has made incestuous advantages towards his sister actually his long-time girlfriend, Cathy (Constance Towers). There are, of course, unaddressed hurdles in this ridiculous scheme: why would the authorities never bother to verify Cathy's true identity? However, once Barrett gets inside the mental ward, we're so fascinated by its peculiar brand of loonies that we don't ask any further questions. The supporting performances vary greatly in subtlety and credibility, but there's no doubt that they hold our attention, prone to unexpected violent outbursts and momentary reclamation of their sanity. Barrett's murder investigation is straightforward and episodic: he merely befriends each of the three witnesses in turn, and waits for them to come to their senses.
This being my first film from Samuel Fuller, I'm not sure whether or not his films typically have underlying political messages. However, 'Shock Corridor' is certainly a confronting critique of the mental health system; indeed, how can the mentally ill ever recover if even a sane man loses his sanity after just several months in such an institution? I was tempted to think that Barrett's mental deterioration was based on the findings of the disastrous Stanford Prison Experiment, in which human behaviour was drastically influenced by one's appointed status as either a "guard" or a "prisoner." Then I remembered that Zimbardo's study wasn't undertaken until 1971, which makes Fuller's conclusions even more audacious and groundbreaking. The film was shot by cinematographer Stanley Cortez, who also worked on 'The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)' and 'The Night of the Hunter (1955),' who superbly blends the raw, gritty aesthetic of low-budget schlock with the distorted, almost-surreal visuals of big-budget film noir. Call it bold, call it outrageous, call it ridiculous; but there's no doubting that Sam Fuller is a director to watch.