Hugo is a brilliant turn-of-the-century scientist, loved and respected by his family and friends, admired by his colleagues. But he is a man quickly becoming obsessed with a curious and frightening question... what is the mysterious apparition found in the photographs of his dying subjects?
Asfixia, Asphyx - kuoleman henki, Den skrikande anden, L'esprit de la mor, Pirullista kauhua, The Horror of Death, L'Esprit de la mort, Asphyx, Experiments, Дух мертвеца, 窒息
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A sort of Victorian Ghostbusters meets Frankenstein with a dash of Hammer, neat premise, and plenty of goofy charm make for a weirdo ‘science gone too far’ Black Mirror episode and I kinda love it.
Week 1: Elvira Week
This is a slightly Hammer-esque horror about a guy who discovers an apparition that appears at the moment of death and decides to trap it in order to become immortal. It’s silly and suspenseful (probably more of the former) and, for some reason, I’ve always really dug it.
It’s set at the turn of the century but it was made in the early 70’s so it’s got that whole aesthetic thing going on that I love. The story would be a total downer if it wasn’t for the theatrics of the cast. Robert Stephens delightfully hams up every word he says and Robert Powell gives some grade-A side eye throughout. In spite of that, some of the scenes still manage to be genuinely tense and even though I knew what was going to happen, I was still sweatin’ a little. Love that total 70’s “freeze frame/roll sound” ending!
"Why, yes, it does sound like no fewer than a dozen meerkats being crushed to death as slowly and painfully as possible, but I fail to see why that should give us pause."
6/10
I vaguely remember watching this oddity as a kid. I appreciated the story was different from the usual big gothic mansion films of the time and the effects when capturing the asphyx's coulda come across a little goofy if it wasn't for how bloody weird it looked and sounded. The Dad, wonderfully played by Robert Stephens, was a maniac and it's always great seeing Robert Powell. The thing that really let it down for me was the sets, a few small basic rooms, no staircase or anything. If Hammer did this it woulda looked glorious!
Spoilers ahead.
The only movie directed by Peter Newbrook (primarily a cinematographer), The Asphyx is an intensely unsettling horror film that forgoes Hammer's glorious combination of blood and tits in favor of psychological tension, familial obligations, and a sometimes excruciating exploration of how the upper classes deal with pain and loss.
As the film opens, a parapsychological society in London has come to the conclusion that dark shadows found in photos of people in their moments of death must be the souls of those people, leaving their bodies. Society member Sir Hugo Cunningham (Robert Stephens), however, begins to think otherwise, when his newly invented motion picture camera seems to reveal a shadow moving toward his son just before the young…
“I want you to sum up my own asphyx.” - Old Distinguished Man,
- DHH #79 (5/31): boxd.it/BaDKw (CLUE: Cat in a significant role)
Drink every time they pronounce “Asphyx” as “Ass Fix.” Have 911 pre-dialed on your phone.
Let's say you're a brilliant scientist who creates a camera that can not only make visible but actually imprison the specter of death and thus grant its subjects immortality. What's the first thing you do? If you said rig up an increasingly elaborate series of Rube Goldberg death devices and play chicken with your loved ones' souls, you probably wrote The Asphyx.
The concept's too good for me to write this off completely, but gosh it seems like it should've been a lot more fun.
This British film is set in the Victorian era and it is a mixture of sci-fi and horror which is rather welcome. Sir Hugo Cunningham (Robert Stephens) as a member of a society studying a photograph taken at the time of death. It seems to show a smudge above the body which several society members believe to be the soul leaving the body. Cunningham however is a skeptic who remains unconvinced. After a tragic incident he happens to catch on tape he develops another hypothesis about what is really going on. It is sort about how far one will go in order to prove or disprove a theory and it's really a fascinating concept. It does feel a bit stiff,…
HOOP X, the 24th
The British costume drama version of "Flatliners", whereby a scientist in Victorian England endeavors with a makeshift camera of his own invention to capture a form of the Grim Reaper during the instant of a person's death when it arrives for their soul. Cockblocking death itself, rendering the person permanently alive forever after. Death-edging, you might call it. Playing with fire like this has its consequences of course, but you can't blame a guy for experimenting with extraordinary phenomena and trying to harness an unprecedented access to eternal life, right? I would've chipped in to his Kickstarter.
A creative story that you can't easily predict during its first half, well-acted, properly staged and judiciously tuned. Kind…
Pretty creepy scifi and horror hybrid set in victoriana times with a story about a scientist playing God with capturing spirits on camera and figuring out immortality. It's a very neat premise about technology in that era and has a gothic feel to it. It has a few surprises and shocking deaths and a tense, clever ending. A hidden British gem.
The basic premise is that life is a more severe punishment than death; this film does not seem to hesitate in its condemnation of the death penalty. The old joke/argument that life in prison is worse than death is a complicated little idea that I will eschew for the moment, but the idea that eternal life is a punishment is more relevant here. The idea of immortality has been explored in fiction finer than this, but there's ambition here that is admirable.
The effects in this tend toward the cartoonish, but the theatricality of it kinda works. The asphyxes reminded me a bit of Slimer, but their wailing and struggling was all the more creepy because they were not the…
"The Asphyx" is a 1972 science fiction/horror effort that is directed by Peter Newbrook. Set within the gothic period of the later 1800's, there is whole elemental design that is reminiscent of H.G. Wells which gives it the reasoning of "science fiction". The addition that our two main characters are researching the departure of the soul or "Asphyx" leaving the body upon death and trapping it gives the film a little horror-based flair to things overall. The merger makes for quite a good film, one that holds the flavorings of genres that we enjoy but uniquely its own brand when pragmatically breaking it down.
The film to a degree reminds me of the true to life "21 Grams Experiment". In…
