Review of Shock Corridor (1963) by Jonathan S — 28 Feb 2010

A really outrageous but well-composed film detailing a reporter who poses as a patient at a mental institution in an attempt to win a Pulitzer Prize. Samuel Fuller directs this film in a way that is highly subversive: I was pretty shocked by how heavy much of the content in the mental hospital was.

Among the several patients in the nuthouse are sex-crazed, violent women (which did cause an utterance that was hilarious in the context of this film: "NYMPHOS"), a black patient who is convinced he is a white supremacist, a corpulent patient who insists on constantly singing opera (and might be one of the better portrayals of mental illness in the film), and the protagonist of the film, a man who pretends he has had sexual urges towards his own sister (who is actually his wife posing as his sister) in order to get committed.

At first he is totally in control of his sanity, remembering he is merely posing as a mentally ill patient to better uncover a murder that occurred in the institution. But as the film progresses he slowly loses his grip on reality, which leads to a highly tragic conclusion.

Fuller uses several art house film techniques, including sweeping zooms, jump cuts, and one really interesting scene where it literally storms inside the fully enclosed mental hospital (representing the inner storm of the man himself).

Fuller's films may seem like B pictures, simply because of the content and the tone at times, but his skill behind the camera is powerful. A film that is slightly dated, but even the dated stuff is pretty engaging, and overall a really good picture.