Review of Shock Corridor (1963) by Sergio A — 06 Aug 2007

I have a weakness for B-movies that deceive you with superficial crudity and turn out to be great works of art. Sam Fuller was great at turning supposedly inferior genre pictures into deft commentaries that reflected upon the social, political, and moral climate of his America.

In this one, a murder is committed inside an asylum, and a journalist attempts to uncover details of the crime by checking in as a patient. While meandering around the asylum, he is exposed to its various inmates and their malaises, and the more he integrates himself, the less his feigned persona remains just an act.

The inmates come to serve as allegory for the racism, paranoia, and sexual repression of American society. And since it is a Sam Fuller film, there is a wonderful lack of regard for subtlety, censorship, and political correctness.

As with the films of several other directors at the time who used the limited, removed territory of B-movies to their advantage, it is hard to imagine something this uncompromising, this direct, and this emotionally unsettling to be found in more prominent, high-budget features.