Genre:
Drama
Release Date: 08/26/1998
Sound: 1
Run Time: 101 Minutes
Flags: Violence, Adult Situations, Not For Children, Adult Language, Sexual Situations
Distributor/Studio: Criterion
Shock Corridor represents filmmaker
Samuel Fuller at his most excessive, but few would have it otherwise.
Peter Breck plays a ruthless journalist who believes that the quickest way to a Pulitzer Prize is to uncover the facts behind a murder at a mental hospital. To glean first-hand information,
Breck pretends to go insane and is locked up in the institution. While pursuing his investigation,
Breck is sidetracked by the loopy behavior of his fellow inmates. During a hospital riot,
Breck is straightjacketed and subjected to shock treatment. By now almost as crazy as he's previously pretended to be,
Breck begins imagining that his exotic-dancer girlfriend
Constance Towers (a
Samuel Fuller "regular") is actually his sister! Typical of the
Fuller ouevre, the characters in
Shock Corridor are either saved or destroyed by their individual obsessions.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide