Asylum (1972 horror film)

Asylum
Theatrical poster to Asylum (1972)
Directed by	Roy Ward Baker
Produced by	Max Rosenberg Milton Subotsky
Written by	Robert Bloch
Starring	Peter Cushing Britt Ekland Robert Powell Herbert Lom Barry Morse Patrick Magee
Music by	Douglas Gamley
Cinematography	Denys N. Coop
Edited by	Peter Tanner
Production company	Amicus Productions
Distributed by	Cinerama Releasing Corporation
Release date	17 November 1972
Running time	88 min
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Asylum (also known as House of Crazies in subsequent US releases) is a 1972 British horror film made by Amicus Productions. The film was directed by Roy Ward Baker, produced by Milton Subotsky, and scripted by Robert Bloch (who adapted four of his own short stories for the screenplay).

Baker had considerable experience as a director of horror films as he had tackled Quatermass and The Pit, and Scars of Dracula. Robert Bloch, who wrote the script for Asylum based on a series of his own short stories, was also the author of the novel Psycho, which Alfred Hitchcock directed as a film.

It is a horror anthology film, one of several produced by Amicus during the 1960s and 1970s. Others were Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, Torture Garden, Tales from the Crypt, The House That Dripped Blood, The Vault of Horror, and From Beyond the Grave.

Shot in April 1972, the film was edited and set for release 15 weeks after the final day of shooting, premièring in July 1972 in the UK. The film had its North American début on 17 November 1972.

Dr Martin arrives at a secluded asylum "for the incurably insane" to be interviewed for a job by the wheelchair-bound, authoritarian Dr. Lionel Rutherford. Rutherford explains that he owes his current incapacitation to an attack by an inmate.