Desert madness, chained patients, and a mad doctor’s castle of horrors.
HELP ME... I'M POSSESSED
A mad doctor runs a sanitarium in the desert, where his hunchbacked servant whips women who are chained in the basement and cuts the legs off bodies so they'll fit in the caskets. Complications ensue.
Help Me... I'm Possessed is a 1974 American horror film directed by Charles Nizet about a mad doctor running a desert sanitarium where disturbing experiments and sinister acts unfold.
Synopsis
Assuring the sheriff that his work there is entirely above board and consists of little more than helping disturbed individuals return to society, he does little to allay the police’s fears, not least when his loopy doll-hugging singing sister appears.
Indeed, we soon learn that the doctor is perhaps not entirely qualified, housing a collection of chained up, scantily clad ladies, a Catweazle-alike prisoner and a hunchback in his basement, all at the mercy of his insane experiments, designed to rid them of madness.
When not being whipped and brutalised, these ‘volunteers’ suffer an even worse fate if they don’t behave or illicit positive results, being killed by snake, guillotine and being hacked up to fit the wrongly-sized coffins.
The arrival of the doctor’s new wife (Peters) sees his plans begin to unravel as disappearing members of staff and her cranky husband arouse her suspicion. Worse still, when she uncovers his experiments she learns that the harnessed ‘evil’ extracted from the patients has manifest itself as something malevolent and hideous.
- Director
- Charles Nizet
- Writers
- Bill Greer, Deedy Peters
- Release
- 1974
- Runtime
- 1h 19m
- Genres
- Horror
- Also Known As
- Nightmare at Blood Castle, The Possessed
Why Cult
The film’s action unfolds in a castle-like sanitarium in the American desert, making for a memorably bizarre backdrop.
From a loopy singing sister to a hunchbacked assistant and chained basement dwellers, the film is stacked with oddball roles.
Dr. Arthur Blackwood’s ‘treatments’ include chaining women in the basement and questionable surgeries to fit bodies in caskets.
Themes & Keywords
Questions from the Vault
What is Help Me... I'm Possessed about? +
Help Me... I'm Possessed follows a mad doctor operating a sanitarium in the desert, where bizarre experiments and sinister happenings plague his patients.
Who directed Help Me... I'm Possessed? +
Charles Nizet directed Help Me... I'm Possessed.
How long is Help Me... I'm Possessed? +
Help Me... I'm Possessed has a runtime of 79 minutes.
What genre is Help Me... I'm Possessed? +
Help Me... I'm Possessed is a horror film.