This English film managed to sneak in between
all the Hammer and Amicus horror films in the early 1970s only to soon be
forgotten and the print misplaced. So various versions were out there with
different running times. IMDB has it at 83 minutes - but that is a cut version.
Kino gathered it all up and spliced it together and their version is 98 minutes.
You can see the difference in the two prints - but most of it looks very
good. It is an interesting strange film. Sort of a Gothic Horror but there
are no scares. Or maybe sci-fi without any sci-fi. Or the supernatural though
there are no ghosts or demons or spells. Just the Asphyx. It is more a stuffy
morality tale of man reaching too high - getting too close to the sun and
paying for it forever. It takes its time which I think is to its benefit
as it takes place in Victorian times and the pace seems apt. I have seen
a few raves about this film and a few dismissals. I guess I fall in the middle.
Well shot, well acted but it is never engrossing or suspenseful till near
the end. It is directed by Peter Newbrook who went on to direct nothing else
but he was the camera man on some pretty great films.
Sir Hugo (Robert Stephenson - The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes) is a photography
enthusiast along with a few friends. He has noticed to his curiosity that
he and two friends took pictures of men who were dying and in each photo
there is a black smudge above the man in his last moments. He begins to theorize.
What is this smudge. Then he films a man being hung and again witnesses this
black smudge. He names it an Asphyx after a Greek word meaning lack of pulse.
Is it your soul leaving your body or something else? He finally decides that
it is the Asphyx entering your body that kills you and if you can somehow
stop this, you can live forever. Immortal. Man's dream going back thousands
of years. Immortality whether here on earth or as some believe in the after
life has always struck me as astonishingly boring. But I would probably take
it if offered the choice and then spend eternity whining about how boring
everything was.
Sir Hugo wants to go for it and along with his adopted son (Robert Powell
- Hannay in the 39 Steps and the TV show) begin experiments on how to capture
an Asphyx right before it enters your body and then store it securely. The
Asphyx appears in blue light visible to the eye and is a hideous screaming
alien looking creature about six inches high. The issue of course is that
you have to come within a few seconds of dying to attract it to you and then
whisk it away. It doesn't always go right. But if you can't die it doesn't
mean you can't feel pain or misery or depression or aging - forever.
