Monday, March 10, 2014

Movie Monday: The Asphyx

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The Asphyx is a 1973 British horror film that looks and feels like it could have been produced by Hammer, but somehow wasn't.
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It tells the story of Sir Hugo Cunningham (Robert Stephens), who is a member of a group of amateur parapsychologists. After looking at some photos Cunningham snapped of people just as they died, the group notices something similar in all of them: a dark blur hovering nearby. After some wild speculation, they conclude Cunningham has photographic proof of the soul!
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Blimey, Crikey, and all that!

Cunningham is skeptical. That is, until he shoots some film of his fiancee and son in a boat. A freak accident kills them both, and when Cunningham reviews the film, he sees that same dark blur by his son just as he died! But by watching the blur move, he concludes that this is not the soul moving away from the body; rather, it was moving towards him, which means that this strange apparition is not the soul, but Death itself, which he calls an "asphyx", a term from Greek mythology.
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Like any good crackpot scientist/philosopher/doctor, this drives Cunningham to want to try and capture the Asphyx. He does some research via a handy local public execution, and determines that the Asphyx is subject to the laws of physics, and can be contained. He and his ward Giles (Robert Powell) put the whammy on a poor guinea pig, and actually manage to snag its asphyx just as it dies.
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"The light is blue, the trap is...clean?"

Cunningham then decides that his work is too valuable ever to lose, and that he should live forever. Good plan! He contrives Giles to nearly electrocute Cunningham to death, drawing out the Asphyx, and sticking it in an impenetrable vault deep below his estate. After an experiment involving Giles' fiancee goes really, really wrong, Cunningham decides that he has Peppered God's Lo Mein and wants his Asphyx to be freed so he is no longer immortal. Giles agrees to help him, but for a price.
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I won't say any more because, well, while The Asphyx is a bit on the dull and stagy side (even at 90 minutes, it feels slow and padded), the final scenes are really fun, and how it brings us back around to the seemingly unconnected opening scene is a great little twist. Who doesn't enjoy watching a mad scientist do something we all know will blow up his face, sometimes literally? Maybe if Hammer had made this, they would have stuck in a couple of bosomy maidens, an extra bloody scene or two, and that might have perked everything up a bit.

The Asphyx is available via Netflix Streaming, so while I wouldn't say you should rush to put it on your queue (oh, excuse me, your List) it does have some fun, ghoulish moments that make it worth a look.


Fun Fact: This is the only film directed by Peter Newbrook, who did second unit photography on a little movie called Lawrence of Arabia. The Asphyx is quite nice to look at, with vivid colors and well-staged scenes. It's a shame he didn't get to sit in the director's chair again.


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