Horror Hospital (1973)

"There's no need to get so uptight about this. I'm not going to rape you."

I was expecting this to be a cheesy British horror film typical of the horror films of its era. I was wrong. It's a serious, genuinely creepy and extremely well directed work of body horror and with a heavy subtext of a generational clash between the young baby boomer generation and its jealous elders who want to get all that free love by any means necessary.

Michael Gough absolutely shines as the villainous lead, pretty much the equal of a Lee or a Cushing. It's good to see Skip Martin, although it's sad how his dwarf character is fatally bullied even by the "heroes".

I'm not saying this is up there with the best horrors, of course, but it's effectively shot, from the opening set piece of the fleeing, bloodied couple being decapitated by the blade in the car to the operation on Judy, shot from above. And the visceral horror of Dr Storm lobotomising his young victims (sex slaves?) is effectively disturbing. Incongruously there's a glam rock band at the start which is actually not bad, and even more incongruously there's Dennis Price as a camp blackmailer who meets the inevitable gruesome death that being gay in a film tended to lead to back in the early '70s.

Watching it now, in our very homebody 2020, it's also an unexpectedly charming period piece for the days of train carriage compartments, bands being called "groups" and gratuitous sex. The main character Jason may be a bit of a lecherous arse, but this film is much better than you'd expect, and well worth seeing.