Hospital Massacre
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All her bones are decaying and her organs are all rancid and her blood is malignant as slime... |
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Hospital Massacre (also known as X-Ray and more rarely as Ward 13) is a 1982 Slasher Film.
On Valentine's Day in 1961, a little girl named Susan Jeremy, after being left a Valentine by nerdy classmate Harold Dooley, crumpled it up and mocked Harold along with her friend David, who Harold (who had been watching the two from outside Susan‘s house) killed in a fit of rage by somehow impaling him on a hatstand while Susan was in the kitchen getting cake.
Exactly nineteen years later, Susan (by now divorced from her husband Tom, with a daughter named Eva, and a fiancé named Jack) is stopping by a hospital to pick up the results of a routine check up required by her new job, but finds herself being forced to stay overnight by the staff after a man in surgical attire secretly murders her personal physician and tampers with her file. As the masked man starts murdering medical personal and appears to be zeroing in on her, Susan realizes something is horribly wrong, but her concerns are ignored by everyone except an ever so helpful intern named Harry, who begins trying to help her escape the hospital, which is quickly becoming a bloodbath...
The doctors say this film shows symptoms of the following:
- Eighties Hair
- Abandoned Area: The Ninth Floor.
- The Alcoholic: Hal, a lecherous drunk prone to wandering the halls.
- A Minor Kidroduction
- An Axe to Grind: Doctor Saxon's death.
- Attempted Rape: Hal tries forcing himself on Susan.
- Bandage Mummies: A trio of patients.
- Bedlam House: The hospital really gives off this vibe.
- Big Damn Heroes: In the loosest sense possible. Right when Harold is going to cut Susan's heart out, her roomates randomly wander into the room, distracting Harold long enough for Susan to grab a knife off the operating tray and stab him with it.
- Cassandra Truth: Susan.
- Cast as a Mask: Don Grenough portrayed Harold in his surgical attire.
- Cat Scare: So many.
- Bonesaw Good: Jack's death.
- Chase Scene: Near the end, a long one between Susan and Harold occurs.
- Chekhov's Gun: Susan's lighter.
- Closed Circle
- Cowboy: There's apparently one with the mumps in Ward 11.
- Cover Drop: Harold about to cut Susan's heart out.
- Creepy Basement: The Archives.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: It's set in a hospital, so of course lots of nasty implements get put to use.
- Crusty Caretaker: The janitor.
- Cue the Sun
- Curtain Camouflage: Used by both Susan and Harold.
- Daylight Horror: The opening.
- Deadly Doctor: Harold, since he actually is employed by the hospital.
- Death by Mocking: David.
- Deliberately Monochrome: Used for flashbacks to the opening and the adult Harold's introduction after The Reveal.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Harold does not take being spurned well at all.
- Dramatic Unmask: Susan ripping off Harold's surgical mask.
- Dye Hard: Susan was blond as a child, but is brunette as an adult.
- The Eighties
- Enfant Terrible: Young Harold.
- Evil Elevator: Harold messes with it the first time Susan uses it.
- Everyone Is a Suspect: The amount of Red Herrings is a bit ridiculous.
- Expy: Harold, and Mr. Randles from The Last Slumber Party.
- Fan Service: In the early eighties, a routine check up meant getting completely nude.
- Final Girl: Susan.
- Freak-Out: Harold experiences one after killing the janitor.
- Jerkass: Hal, and one of the old ladies Susan is forced to share a room with.
- Gorn
- Gossipy Hens: Susan's hospital roommates.
- Group Hug: Susan, Tom and Eva in the end.
- Harmful to Minors: Young Susan finding David's dead body.
- Hollywood Acid: The janitor gets his face dunked in a sink that was full of it... for some reason.
- Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday
- Hospital Hottie: Of course.
- Hot Mom: Susan.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: David on a hat stand, and Doctor Beam getting a metal spike... thing through the neck.
- Improvised Weapon: A stethoscope and a pipe.
- Infernal Retaliation: Attempted by Harold, but Susan moves out of the way, so he falls off the roof.
- Informed Flaw: According to Susan, Tom is an asshole.
- It Was Here, I Swear: When Jack's head disappears from the hat box Harold left for Susan.
- Karma Houdini: You'd expect Hal to be killed off, but nope.
- Kids Are Cruel: Why Harold snapped.
- Knife Nut
- Los Angeles
- Man On Fire: Susan uses her lighter to set Harold on fire, after spilling chemicals on him.
- Medical Horror
- Menacing Stroll
- Murderer POV
- Noodle Implements: Why is there a screwdriver in a tray of medical tools?
- Noodle Incident: Jack mentions a patient apparently ran amok in the hospital the previous year.
- Offscreen Teleportation
- Off with His Head: Jack's death.
- Ominous Latin Chanting: Used so much it's practically Harold's Leitmotif.
- Once Is Not Enough: Getting knifed and then whacked with a pipe just slows Harold down.
- Peek-a-Boo Corpse: The janitor finding Doctor Jacobs's body in a cabinet, and Nancy just happens to enter the lab as Suzy's body falls out of closet.
- Pipe Pain: Susan fends Harold off with one.
- Playing with Syringes: Nurse Kitty's death.
- Porn Stache: Doctor Beam.
- Reaction Shot
- Recut: The version titled X-Ray apparently had a ridiculous twelve minutes lopped off. Better artwork, though.
- The Reveal: If the name wasn't a dead giveaway, Harry is Harold.
- Riddle for the Ages: What the Hell is wrong with the patient Harold switched Susan's test results with?
- Shadow Discretion Shot: Jack's death.
- Shout-Out: To My Bloody Valentine, in the form of a trio of hospital employees wearing Harry Warden-esque gas masks.
- The Sixties: The opening.
- Slasher Smile: Done by Harold after he kills David.
- Statuesque Stunner: Nurse Dora, who is roughly a head taller than everyone else in the film.
- Strapped to An Operating Table
- Thirteen Is Unlucky: Alternate title Ward 13.
- Title In: Susan's House - 1961 and 19 Years Later.
- Two First Names: Susan Jeremy.
- Vader Breath
- Wall Slump: Doctor Beam's death.
- What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: Young Susan getting slices of cake for herself and David; there's intense music, gratuitous zoom-ins, she takes the biggest knife available, and then viciously hacks the cake completely in half with it.
- Would Hurt a Child: Harold killing David, though they were roughly the same age at the time.
- X Meets Y: My Bloody Valentine meets Halloween II (or maybe Visiting Hours).