Lousy Lottery 17: Let's Take a Trip to the Doom Asylum!
Welcome, friends, to the Lousy Lottery! Here’s how it works. First, I post four movies to a poll on Twitter. Fans vote to pick which movie to make me watch that week. I watch it, review it and spread the word about an amazingly awful, terribly terrific b-horror flick.
This is week 17! Your pick for this week has driven me mad! I guess I’ll need a trip to 1988’s Doom Asylum! I truly cannot believe I’ve never seen this one. Before we get into all that, let’s chat plot.
I say plot, but there really isn’t much of one. People complained about ‘80s slashers being one excuse after another for teens to meet their untimely demise. This movie takes that approach and runs with it. Oh, my baseball card blew into this abandoned asylum, what could go wrong if I just step in there and grab it? There’s a killer on the loose in this building, but that cute girl went inside, I bet I could totally nail her if I went in there. And so on. Doom Asylum isn’t about plot. It’s about fun filled gore and maybe the occasional topless blonde. If character and plot development are what you’re after, you might want to look elsewhere.
In the first five minutes of this movie, we see drunk driving, someone get their hand severed, a coroner who refused to take his sunglasses off, a guy on the slab whose guts are spilling out but somehow gets up and stabs everyone to death and see that same guy decide to start squatting at an abandoned asylum. All of it happens in minutes and not a single lick of it is explained in any way. Then, for some reason, we skip ahead ten years and see that some teens, played by people easily in their late ‘30s, who’ve decided to go hang out at said asylum. On the car ride there, one, Kiki, says she’s kind of blue because “well, my mother died here.” Wait, what? Then why are you going to hang out there?! Her boyfriend, Mike, decides randomly to pull over and take her for a walk, you know, to help with the nerves.
When they do, she reaches down and finds a mirror on the side of the road that belonged to her deceased mother. Wow, what’re the odds! Despite this all happening in about ten seconds, her friends from the car shout, “will you assholes hurry up, she’s been dead for ten years!” Jesus. Her boyfriend comforts her by saying, “Look, I could never replace your mother, but I can certainly try.” To which she responds simply, “can I call you mom?” Sure, why not, eh? When the ‘teens’ arrive at the asylum, they find it isn’t abandoned after all. It seems an all-girl noise punk band with a soviet motif is playing a show to an audience of no one. This, ladies and gentlemen, is only the first few minutes of the movie. How have I not seen this movie before? Goddamn it’s magical and bizarre.
One of the ‘teens’ goes inside the asylum because he has the hots for one of the band members. Who wouldn’t?! He goes in to see if he can get lucky with the drummer, but, alas, finds only death at the hands of a madman. One by one, they go inside and one by one are slaughtered. The killer, in addition to somehow being alive despite his injuries and it having been a decade, seems to be obsessed with classic horror movies. Is there any aspect of the film so far that gives any reason for this? No, but I do appreciate all the classic black and white horror imagery. He kills a ‘teen’ and quickly goes back to his room to watch more classic horror. Why? No clue. As the ‘teens’ continue to die, we’re down to Kiki and the lead singer of the noise punk band. I thought the singer was going to be the final girl in a twist I would’ve loved. She’s so strange and badass, I would’ve hailed her as my queen. However, close to the end, she meets her end too. That leaves Kiki.
While she may not call the killer ‘mom,’ the killer realizes, again no clue how, that Kiki is the daughter of the woman who died at the very beginning. Well, at first, he thinks Kiki is that woman, but then comes to understand that she’s actually that woman’s daughter. I have so many questions here. If that woman was the love of his life, how did he not know she had a daughter? For that matter, is he not Kiki’s father? They seemed to be married and, well, it’s safe to assume, especially in ‘80s fiction, that he’d be the dad or at least know of her existence. The filmmakers decided to have the same actress play both the mom and the daughter, so it makes sense he would be confused, but that begs even more questions. If you think a single one of these logical inquiries is satisfied by the film, you are mistaken.
He wants to love and cherish Kiki and tells her that all the killing he’s done over the years has been ‘for her.’ How? In what possible way? Sorry, sorry, again, no answers. Kiki isn’t interested in getting to the bottom of this or learning who he is or calling Maury to see if he’s her dad, she just kills his ass. She walks off after a one-liner and the movie cuts to a scene from a classic horror movie before going to the credits. Make sense? No? Yeah, that’s fair.
’m absolutely in love with this movie from start to finish. It’s like taking a road that seems normal but every single turn leads not to buildings and park benches, but to acid trips and black holes. Every decision the filmmakers made me double take, just like every time Mike calls Kiki mom. Okay, before we move on, I have share my favorite ‘mom’ moment. Mike comes onto her and she responds, “but mom, that’d be incest!” The whole runtime, which is only 80 minutes despite a third of the movie being scenes from other movies, was an absolute blast and one ‘what the hell?’ after another.
Some of the gore was truly great too. Stabbings, guts spilling out, a guy gets killed by some surgical pincers, it’s all gooey, gory practical effects and it’s scrumptious. There’s one scene in particular where the killer takes off Mike’s toes one at a time. While it’s super fake looking, it still made me squirm. So bloody and, well, I fucking hate feet. Don’t touch my feet, folks, okay? Just don’t. I know. I know. It’s weird, but, seriously. Anyway, point is the practical effects were surprisingly good and loads of gory fun.
In the end, you may not get good writing or acting or, well, production values, but you do get a silly, violent slasher with boobs, punk rock and gore a plenty. If you’re looking for the depth and breadth of a David Mamet work, you don’t go to Six Flags to find it. If you’re looking for some cheap thrills, Six Flags is the shit. Know what I mean? What more could you ask for in an ‘80s b-horror movie? Would I recommend this movie? You bet your ass I would. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a bowl to smoke and a second viewing of Doom Asylum to attend to.
Also, don’t forget to see what’s coming next in the Lousy Lottery. Make sure you tune into Twitter later today and vote for Lousy Lottery 18! My handle is @MrJosh79, look for it and don’t forget to vote!
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