Directed by Boaz Davidson. Starring Barbi Benton (1981).
Reviewed by Michael Hauss
I purchased this film for one reason and one reason alone. That being the woman who helped get my young nuts into gear is in it. Barbi Benton, was one of those in a long line of former Playboy playmates who tried to take their naked talents and transform them into a career in entertainment. Benton tried to succeed both as a singer and an actress, but never achieved any fame in either, but she did stay relevant for years manly of course because she was Hugh Hefner’s girlfriend and it was his millions paying for those no talent career attempts which kept her pathetically relevant for way too long.
In this film, also called HOSPITAL MASSACRE she can’t change her facial reactions, either her acting talents were less than ever imagined, or maybe her face was so tightly stretched from plastic surgery that it did not respond anymore. Well regardless she’s surrounded by a cast of actors who ummm, well one guy (Bill Errigo) who plays a janitor does look a lot like the dude Kramer from Seinfeld and another who looks like Dr. Phil (Den Surles).
So Barbi plays a character named Susan Jeremy who as a kid on Valentine’s day finds her friend David hanging dead from a coat rack and some snotty ass twerp named Harold looking in the window grinning. You see Harold had delivered a Valentine’s day card to Susan’s door and ran after knocking and looked in the window to see David and Susan laughing and David wadding the Valentine’s card up and next thing you know poor little David is hanging from a fucking coat rack.
The film moves ahead nineteen years and Susan is all grown up with a daughter of her own, a nasty ex-husband, a new boyfriend, and she’s rocking out those classic polyester suit ensembles from the eighties and large hair. She has to go to the hospital to pick up some test results and as she makes her way, the film throws a bunch of lame scares at the audience, but does not build any tension or suspense and the scares just come across as feeble attempts.
As poor Susan goes up to her appointment on the 8th floor on the elevator she notices a man with what looks like blood on his face and something red starts dripping on her shoe, the man awakens and is shown taking a bite out of a hamburger with too much ketchup and looks over at Susan and says Happy Valentines day, and then when she goes to the ninth floor instead of the eighth, which is being fumigated, she's met by three men in gas masks and one tells her to get out before she's deloused. Then suddenly the power cuts off on the elevator and with the looks of someone mustering up a major large bowel movement passage, her plastic looking face grimaces up and you can tell she is acting her ass of.
So some deranged killer is killing off doctors, nurses and even the dude who looks like Kramer, (he gets his face eaten off with acid) he’s changing X-rays (hence the title) and medical reports to make it look like she has a terminal illness and to assure that Susan is kept in that hospital. Eventually Susan must undress and be examined by some random doctor after her doctor disappeared and what she lacks in acting ability, she makes up for in her abundant breast and as the editor of this blog noted, her rather large nipples.
Susan is put into a ward with three old women that includes an obvious man dressed as an old lady and another bitter ass hag who plays the spoons and tells the other two that she (Susan) maybe "young and lovely on the outside maybe, but old and rotten on the inside. All her bones are decaying and her organs are all rancid and her blood is malignant as slime." Well, so we have a whole list of suspects including her psychotic ex-husband, Harold from her childhood, various doctors, the cheeseburger eating wine swilling wino who follows along after Susan or possibly the kind handsome doctor named Harry (Charles Lucia), whose name is a shortened form of Harold. So you figure it out...
 |
| You're just jealous Mike because you weren't invited to our rapey shindigs |
In this film, also called HOSPITAL MASSACRE she can’t change her facial reactions, either her acting talents were less than ever imagined, or maybe her face was so tightly stretched from plastic surgery that it did not respond anymore. Well regardless she’s surrounded by a cast of actors who ummm, well one guy (Bill Errigo) who plays a janitor does look a lot like the dude Kramer from Seinfeld and another who looks like Dr. Phil (Den Surles).
 |
| Boaz almost put me in Lemon Popsicle as Huey's wingman |
So Barbi plays a character named Susan Jeremy who as a kid on Valentine’s day finds her friend David hanging dead from a coat rack and some snotty ass twerp named Harold looking in the window grinning. You see Harold had delivered a Valentine’s day card to Susan’s door and ran after knocking and looked in the window to see David and Susan laughing and David wadding the Valentine’s card up and next thing you know poor little David is hanging from a fucking coat rack.
 |
| Don't get up, I'm totally fine |
The film moves ahead nineteen years and Susan is all grown up with a daughter of her own, a nasty ex-husband, a new boyfriend, and she’s rocking out those classic polyester suit ensembles from the eighties and large hair. She has to go to the hospital to pick up some test results and as she makes her way, the film throws a bunch of lame scares at the audience, but does not build any tension or suspense and the scares just come across as feeble attempts.
As poor Susan goes up to her appointment on the 8th floor on the elevator she notices a man with what looks like blood on his face and something red starts dripping on her shoe, the man awakens and is shown taking a bite out of a hamburger with too much ketchup and looks over at Susan and says Happy Valentines day, and then when she goes to the ninth floor instead of the eighth, which is being fumigated, she's met by three men in gas masks and one tells her to get out before she's deloused. Then suddenly the power cuts off on the elevator and with the looks of someone mustering up a major large bowel movement passage, her plastic looking face grimaces up and you can tell she is acting her ass of.
 |
| Keep those botox injections comin, I can handle it |
So some deranged killer is killing off doctors, nurses and even the dude who looks like Kramer, (he gets his face eaten off with acid) he’s changing X-rays (hence the title) and medical reports to make it look like she has a terminal illness and to assure that Susan is kept in that hospital. Eventually Susan must undress and be examined by some random doctor after her doctor disappeared and what she lacks in acting ability, she makes up for in her abundant breast and as the editor of this blog noted, her rather large nipples.
 |
| I need that Chinese Balm that Jackie Chiles told me not to use for these coffee burns |
Susan is put into a ward with three old women that includes an obvious man dressed as an old lady and another bitter ass hag who plays the spoons and tells the other two that she (Susan) maybe "young and lovely on the outside maybe, but old and rotten on the inside. All her bones are decaying and her organs are all rancid and her blood is malignant as slime." Well, so we have a whole list of suspects including her psychotic ex-husband, Harold from her childhood, various doctors, the cheeseburger eating wine swilling wino who follows along after Susan or possibly the kind handsome doctor named Harry (Charles Lucia), whose name is a shortened form of Harold. So you figure it out...
 |
| You've heard of Dr. Giggles, let me introduce you to Dr. Fribble because that's my fav Friendly's shake |
The film never builds any tension or momentum. Some of the scenes are illogical and make you ask yourself are these people fucking stupid or what. The acting is atrocious and the music sounds like something lifted from some 1970’s movie of the week. The continued use of cheap scares is absolutely annoying and are really used in the place of proper tension building. A truly amateur affair all around, but I must say that when Barbi Benton went into full out scream queen mode, she wasn’t half bad and her fun bags must have helped to amplify that most impressive scream of hers. The Shout Factory release boasts a beautiful print, that looks wonderful despite its obvious low budget origins.
Few notes of interest, Elizabeth Hoy who plays the young Susan in the film and Billy Jacoby (Billy Jayne) who plays weird young Harold both appear in the far superior BLOODY BIRTHDAY (USA, 1981) as two of the three children who go on a killing spree. The director Boaz Davidson has a whole mess of executive producing credits and twenty-six directing credits on his resume including a directorial credit on the famously inept comedy GOING BANANAS (USA, 1987) and the legendary LEMON POPSICLE Series. Benton's only other exploitation film appearance is in the fun fantasy romp DEATHSTALKER (USA,1983), where she plays the character Codille and fares much better acting wise than she did in X-RAY. This film was of course most noteworthy for being a Golan-Globus production for their famous or infamous film company Cannon Films. The film was based around a holiday, this one being Valentine's day as was the vastly superior MY BLOODY VALENTINE (Canada, 1981). The year before Cannon had distributed the holiday themed slasher film NEW YEAR'S EVIL (USA, 1980).
BUY HERE THE BLU-RAY INCLUDES SCHIZOID
Few notes of interest, Elizabeth Hoy who plays the young Susan in the film and Billy Jacoby (Billy Jayne) who plays weird young Harold both appear in the far superior BLOODY BIRTHDAY (USA, 1981) as two of the three children who go on a killing spree. The director Boaz Davidson has a whole mess of executive producing credits and twenty-six directing credits on his resume including a directorial credit on the famously inept comedy GOING BANANAS (USA, 1987) and the legendary LEMON POPSICLE Series. Benton's only other exploitation film appearance is in the fun fantasy romp DEATHSTALKER (USA,1983), where she plays the character Codille and fares much better acting wise than she did in X-RAY. This film was of course most noteworthy for being a Golan-Globus production for their famous or infamous film company Cannon Films. The film was based around a holiday, this one being Valentine's day as was the vastly superior MY BLOODY VALENTINE (Canada, 1981). The year before Cannon had distributed the holiday themed slasher film NEW YEAR'S EVIL (USA, 1980).
BUY HERE THE BLU-RAY INCLUDES SCHIZOID
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