X-Ray (aka Hospital Massacre)

One last Valentine’s Day themed horror picture for ya.  Similar to Valentine we start in the past with an adolescent boy named Harold (ok, I know what you’re thinking but we’ll get to that in a sec) leaving a valentine card for a girl at her home.  She and her guy friend (or boyfriend?  Not sure) scoff at the idea and crumple it up and toss it away.  Harold, creepily peering through the window, sees this and goes ballistic.  He hangs the other boy (you read that right) and scurries off.  Smash cut to modern day where that girl is a grown woman now, Susan (Barbi Benton (Deathstalker)), and is off to the hospital to pick up some X-rays from a routine checkup.  But someone at the hospital starts killing off the medical professionals and replacing Susan’s records with some shit that deeply concerns the other doctors.  We never find out what but it’s bad enough that they want to run more tests and keep her there for observation.  All the while the killer stalks her and wreaks havoc.

So that’s a pretty good setup.  They keep the action contained entirely within one location, there’s plenty of dangerous stuff lying around the hospital for the villain to use, the doctors think Susan is both physically and mentally ill with all the games the killer plays so when she tries to leave several times she’s stopped and strapped down, most of the film takes place at night and since hospitals don’t close there are always potential victims around.

They definitely try hard to make the hospital feel like a scary place but not in the way you’re expecting.  The building itself isn’t really lit or presented in a spooky manner, although there’s this gag where one of the floors is being fumigated so anyone that goes up there has to grope their way through a cough inducing fog.  Aside from that the filmmakers mainly rely on the patients and staff to give you an uneasy sensation.  As far as the patients go they’re made out to be either mentally disturbed (like the three old ladies Susan shares a room with or the one guy who roams the corridors with a bottle of hooch) or physically impaired (like the room filled with people in full body casts writhing around in muffled screaming or the other room full of decrepit old guys seemingly on their deathbed).  These people are just trying to get some help but the movie wants you find them all frightening in some way or another.  Kinda messed up.

In terms of how the staff is portrayed there’s one doctor in particular who treats Susan and man do they make him a fuckin’ slimeball.  He’s so serious and condescending and never tells Susan what the hell’s going on or why she’s being held there against her will or anything.  In one decidedly uncomfortable scene he has her strip down to her underwear so he can examine her in the most sinister way possible.  He’s feeling her all over and goes to draw blood and does it all very slowly without saying a word practically.  I think the filmmakers wanted to convey how some folks feel when they go see a doctor, how exposed they are, how in the dark they are about their own health, wondering if they’re being taken advantage of.  And, tragically, in some cases patients really are abused.  But I think the intention of these scenes, along with Susan’s run-ins with the other patients, is to create a sense of ambiguity surrounding her perception.  Are these people being treated like lab experiments or getting proper care?  Is this guy examining her in a professional manner or molesting her?  This is a whodunit slasher after all and we need suspects.  But really these scenes come across more awkward than anything else.

And that’s something that carries through the whole movie.  There’s a stiffness to the performances and cinematography and an unevenness to the pacing.  Director Boaz Davidson is Israeli and had made plenty of films over there before coming to the US and hooking up with Cannon in the late 70’s.  X-Ray was earlier on in his American phase so maybe something’s getting lost in translation.  Or it could simply be he went for a style that doesn’t completely work.

Anyway, overall the picture is ok.  I like that Susan’s X-ray is what sets the plot in motion so that fits in neatly with the title.  There’s some Valentine’s Day stuff like a couple of decorations in the hospital and Susan’s outfit towards the beginning is red and pink and the way her jacket is buttoned makes it look like she has a heart on her chest.  Oh and someone’s head gets delivered in a red hatbox.  The kills are varied with a few being gruesome like a medical saw through the throat and a hatchet to the head.  I appreciate that the villain runs after their victims which is a welcomed departure from the typical brisk walk in most other slashers.  They do the really heavy mouth breathing though through a surgical mask.  Like probably the heaviest mask breathing I’ve ever seen where the mask is billowing in and out like a balloon.  It’s exaggerated as hell.  Barbi Benton doesn’t do fantastic for the first half of the runtime where she’s kinda detached and even a touch jerky but turns on a nice performance when she has to wig out in a crazed and desperate state.

One aspect that’s a standout is the awesome soundtrack by Arlon Orber (Eating Raoul, orchestrator on Child’s Play and Sam Raimi’s Crimewave).  It’s a mix between Friday the 13^th and The Omen with string stabs, Psycho-esque screeching and hellish choir chanting.  It’s distracting how fantastic it is.  Honestly, it’s too good for this movie.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the music was written for something else and the producers re-used it here.

Alright, I’m finally circling back to what I was alluding to in the intro.  The murderous boy in the opening scene is named Harold and guess what the killer miner’s name is in My Bloody Valentine?  Harry.  Plus, and this is a doozy, at one point early in the movie Susan takes an elevator up to the floor that the hospital is fumigating and when the doors open three people in gas masks tell her the floor is off limits.  The masks are very similar to the one used in My Bloody.  And of course there’s the Valentine’s Day connection.  My Bloody Valentine was released in 1981 and according to Wikipedia X-Ray was released in 1982 so I’m hoping these are playful nods.  I refuse to believe this is all a coincidence.  I don’t know how it played back then but it’s amusing now and put me in a bizzarro state of mind when those gas masks popped up.

Anyway, that’s X-Ray (or Hospital Massacre).  It’s fine.  A fairly standard slasher that isn’t too remarkable except for the soundtrack and the quirky Valentine’s Day backdrop.  And that it begins with a child murdering another child.