Shock Corridor (1998) Synopsis & Summary

Synopsis

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

Movie Info

Theatrical Release Date:
02/17/1998
DVD Release Date:
08/26/1998
Rating:
Not Yet Rated
Run Time:
101 min.
Distributor(s):
Allied Artists
Production Co.:
Allied Artists
Director(s):
Genre(s):
Themes:
Writer's Life, Doctors and Patients, Fighting the System, Wrongly Committed, Going Undercover
Tone:
Angry, Forceful, Lurid, Paranoid, Stylized, Visceral, Confrontational
Keywords:
attack, craziness, delusion, disguise, hospital, insanity, investigation, investigator, journalism, killing, mental-illness, murder, prize, psychiatry, riot [uprising], scientist, security-guard, therapist, witness
Language:
English
Status:
DVD