"The Asphyx" is a British horror film set in Victorian England. Sir Hugo Cunningham is scientist involved in studying psychic phenomena, particularly what happens to the body at the moment of death. (This subject takes on a special significance for him after his young second wife Anna and his son Giles are killed in a boating accident). From photographic experiments he concludes that when a person dies his or her body is entered by an "asphyx", or spirit of death. He also concludes that every person has a personal asphyx and that if this spirit could be trapped and prevented from entering the body, it would be possible for that person to become immortal.
Cunningham therefore embarks upon a series of dangerous experiments designed to capture his asphyx and thereby become immortal. He is assisted by the two surviving members of his family, his daughter Christina and his adopted son Giles, who are in love with one another. (Well, they're not blood relations, so it's not actually illegal, but that still seems very strange to me). They are initially reluctant, but Cunningham wins them over by promising to allow them to marry. Of course, whenever a scientist in a horror movie tries to play God, you know that things are going to go wrong, and that is precisely what happens here. Very wrong indeed.
The film reminded me of "Demons of the Mind", another British horror film from 1972. The subject-matter of the two films is different, but like the main character of "Demons of the Mind", Baron Zorn, Cunningham is a middle-aged aristocratic widower with a son and daughter from his first marriage. The two films also have a similar look, closer to that of British "heritage cinema" than the traditional spooky horror flick. Both Zorn and Cunningham live in elegant, solidly furnished stately homes, and both films pay considerable attention to recreating the elaborate costumes of the era.
When I reviewed "Demons of the Mind", I said that as an exercise in storytelling it was not really a success, yet it had a certain crazed logic about it, a logic which is not that of the well-made piece of fiction but that of a weird, exotic nightmare which taps into our deepest fears about the hidden and the uncanny. The same could also be said of "The Asphyx". The story does not always make sense and it is at times not easy to follow. Yet it also taps into some deep human anxieties, and not just our worries about what mad scientists might be getting up to. We fear Death, yet we also fear that being trapped in life and unable to die might be an even worse fate. "The Asphyx" might at first sight seem like a piece of schlock horror, made at a time when the British cinema was churning out dozens of schlock horror movies every year. Yet beneath its surface it has some hidden, and very murky, depths. 6/10
Some goofs. From the date on one character's tomb, we know that the action takes place in the year 1875. A public hanging plays a part in the plot, but public executions were abolished in Britain after 1868. A movie camera also plays a part in the story, but such cameras were not developed until the late 1880s and 1890s. However, Cunningham is an inventor as well as a scientist, and the concept of motion pictures was certainly being discussed in the 1870s, so one could argue that showing something being invented a few years ahead of schedule is not really a goof.
Cunningham therefore embarks upon a series of dangerous experiments designed to capture his asphyx and thereby become immortal. He is assisted by the two surviving members of his family, his daughter Christina and his adopted son Giles, who are in love with one another. (Well, they're not blood relations, so it's not actually illegal, but that still seems very strange to me). They are initially reluctant, but Cunningham wins them over by promising to allow them to marry. Of course, whenever a scientist in a horror movie tries to play God, you know that things are going to go wrong, and that is precisely what happens here. Very wrong indeed.
The film reminded me of "Demons of the Mind", another British horror film from 1972. The subject-matter of the two films is different, but like the main character of "Demons of the Mind", Baron Zorn, Cunningham is a middle-aged aristocratic widower with a son and daughter from his first marriage. The two films also have a similar look, closer to that of British "heritage cinema" than the traditional spooky horror flick. Both Zorn and Cunningham live in elegant, solidly furnished stately homes, and both films pay considerable attention to recreating the elaborate costumes of the era.
When I reviewed "Demons of the Mind", I said that as an exercise in storytelling it was not really a success, yet it had a certain crazed logic about it, a logic which is not that of the well-made piece of fiction but that of a weird, exotic nightmare which taps into our deepest fears about the hidden and the uncanny. The same could also be said of "The Asphyx". The story does not always make sense and it is at times not easy to follow. Yet it also taps into some deep human anxieties, and not just our worries about what mad scientists might be getting up to. We fear Death, yet we also fear that being trapped in life and unable to die might be an even worse fate. "The Asphyx" might at first sight seem like a piece of schlock horror, made at a time when the British cinema was churning out dozens of schlock horror movies every year. Yet beneath its surface it has some hidden, and very murky, depths. 6/10
Some goofs. From the date on one character's tomb, we know that the action takes place in the year 1875. A public hanging plays a part in the plot, but public executions were abolished in Britain after 1868. A movie camera also plays a part in the story, but such cameras were not developed until the late 1880s and 1890s. However, Cunningham is an inventor as well as a scientist, and the concept of motion pictures was certainly being discussed in the 1870s, so one could argue that showing something being invented a few years ahead of schedule is not really a goof.