Samuel Fuller’s status as one of the most divisive filmmakers to ever work in the medium is certainly not unearned – a great deal of his work consisted of complex character-studies that were socially-charged and executed with a perceived lack of subtlety, which ultimately makes them either fascinating works of powerfully rugged artistry or imperfect experiments that don’t always find themselves hitting all their targets, depending on how the individual viewer reacts to the director’s perceived avoidance of anything remotely close to delicacy or nuance. Many consider his masterpiece to be Shock Corridor, his version of a film noir set within the confines of a mental hospital, a twisted and perverse exploration of the true bounds of sanity, and how volatile human nature tends to be. I’ll note from the outset that this wasn’t a film I cared all that much about when it ended – the appeal is certainly very clear, and it’s impossible to blame the countless people who are captivated by this work since it is certainly a stark and unforgettable piece. Like the majority of Fuller’s work, Shock Corridor has the aura of “love it or hate it”, and while it would probably be too harsh to say that I tend towards the latter, I certainly couldn’t bring myself to investing in this film as much as others in the past have. Perhaps it’s the challenges I perpetually face when looking into Fuller’s work (such as the fact that, as talented as he may have been, his ambitions often outweighed the final product), or the fact that there’s just something missing from this film, a certain quality that would allow it to meet the potential it has – whichever way one wants to look at it, Shock Corridor just doesn’t quite meet expectations, which is quite upsetting, since this is a film with such an extraordinary premise, but which doesn’t quite take the opportunities presented to it, which is an unfortunate, but absolutely unsurprising, quality of something that strives for greatness, but falls a few steps too short of achieving it at all.

Despite the problems I have with this film, one aspect that is very much appreciated with Shock Corridor is its simplicity – Fuller understands precisely what he wants to do with the film, and he makes a concerted effort to execute it in a way that feels authentic. We certainly can’t fault the director for not going for greatness, even if he leapt a bit too far in his attempt to reach it, and in the process stumbled far too often for us to overlook the problems embedded within this very flawed film. In terms of form, something about Shock Corridor just doesn’t work – it is often quite meagre in the most formal aspects, being very little more than a thinly-written crime procedural that moves the investigation out of the urban cityscape, and into an unexpected location for a murder story, namely a psychiatric hospital. This is where I’d expected the majority of people would be either enticed into the film, or utterly repulsed by it – but considering Fuller was not a director known to take a particularly subtle approach, we can appreciate that he did attempt to lend some insights into the institution in a way that didn’t feel exploitative (and noting how this may have inadvertently inspired a small but frequent group of imitators to make their own harrowing social dramas set in the corridors of an asylum, we can appreciate the more respectful approach here), but rather lent insights into a side of society that has rarely been given the attention it deserves, especially at this particular point in time. Fuller was a journeyman of a filmmaker, his work always being wonderfully simple, finding a kind of urban romanticism in their stories, which he executes with delightful precision and unfurnished honesty – unfortunately, it seems like Shock Corridor isn’t quite capable of achieving that, beyond a promising set of ideas, extracted from a fantastic plot structure, that doesn’t manifest in any really satisfying way.

The problem is, there really just isn’t much in this story that keeps us engaged, the novelty of the premise wearing off quite fast and leaving Fuller with the unenviable task of filling up the rest of the space, which he does through an admirable but misguided method: infusing a socially-charged throughout the film. Fuller’s work often featured some kind of deeper meaning, and Shock Corridor is not any exception – the plot structure, which takes up most of the film, focuses on the main character interacting with three witnesses to a recent murder in the institution, with each one of them having been committed after suffering from some traumatic situation that caused their mental health to deteriorate. Whether it be racism, nuclear disaster or other effects of the Cold War, they’ve each lost their mind. Normally, this would make for quite a compelling piece – Shock Corridor is remarkably theatrical insofar as it presents us with a small group of characters who are given a chance to tell their story, while the plot unfolds around them. The fact that there is a concerted effort to shade them in by having them explore their own roots of insanity would typically be a fertile opportunity to focus on broader issues channelled through these characters. However, the film becomes far too intent on the message, it loses that spark of brilliance that set it off in the first place. Fuller genuinely believes he is making an explosive masterpiece with Shock Corridor, a psychological thriller undercut with serious socio-cultural commentary, when in actuality, it’s a misguided bundle of ideas that show an artist so insistent on finding the real-world relevance in this story, he fails to weave it into the narrative in a way that feels authentic. Shock Corridor is the embodiment of “telling instead of showing”, and while there are some merits in the approach the director takes, any film that foregoes subtlety to the point where the artistic integrity is somewhat compromised is inherently not going to work.

However, the most significant shortcoming of Shock Corridor comes in the fact that Fuller extracts some truly weak performances from the cast. Peter Breck, the dashing B-movie actor, plays the central role, and while it is quite a passive role (which is where Breck thrives), there are moments where his performance is rife with inconsistency and disconcerting artificiality, which makes the character of John such an unlikeable protagonist when the point was to have him become a tragic hero, a man who took his passion too far and was punished for it. He does hold his own for most of the film, and is quite charismatic when the film needs him to be, but also falters when it demands more. However, Breck’s performance is a delight compared to some of the work being done by the rest of the cast – Constance Towers gives a masterclass in overwrought acting, playing the part of Cathy, perpetually screaming out her lines as if she is worried she may forget them, foregoing all possibility of elegance for a role that was clearly written to be graceful. Similarly, we can see the same ineptitude coming from James Best, as the shell-shocked war veteran who believes himself to be a solider in another way, and Hari Rhodes, playing the brainwashed African-American who believes himself to be a high-ranking official of the Ku Klux Klan (and which was more effective a few decades later when Dave Chappelle’s comedic exploration of the same concept actually managed to make more of a profound statement). The only two great performances in Shock Corridor come on behalf of Larry Tucker, who was mostly known as a screenwriter, playing the part of the sinister Pagliacci, and Gene Evans, as the former scientific genius reduced to an infantile state due to encountering government secrets. It only makes sense that these two are relatively small roles that leave an impression, but not enough to salvage what remains of Shock Corridor‘s potential.

I’d argue that Shock Corridor is something of a litmus test for Fuller’s work – if you’re able to get on board with what he is doing here, then you’ll be able to invest in any of his films. For that reason alone, we can consider Shock Corridor to be more of a disappointment than a failure – it’s about as rough and gritty as the director’s later work, while being perhaps slightly more palatable than something like Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street or White Dog, which don’t convey messages as much as they throw them at the viewer. The film is mercifully not unbearable – there are some moments of genius peppered throughout, but they’re simply too few and far-between to actually make any meaningful connection. Perhaps I’m being too hard on this film – after all, it didn’t purport to be anything other than what we delivered to us on screen in the end. However, Fuller’s audacity just doesn’t work all that well here, at least subjectively – there’s an insidiousness to this film that’s just impossible to shake off, and for those with a penchant for audacity without much payoff, Shock Corridor may be a worthwhile endeavour. This doesn’t mean the film lacks merit, or that it doesn’t achieve anything remarkable – in fact, one of its few redeeming qualities is that beneath the lacklustre execution, there’s a very promising concept that could’ve been explored had Fuller approached it from a place of more steadfast lucidity, rather than throwing everything out of the proverbial narrative toolbox and seeing what stuck. Shock Corridor is not a bad film in the traditional sense – it does manage to avoid becoming boring (and there are some genuinely horrifying scenes, such as when the main character finds himself trapped in a room with a group of deranged women, who gradually circle him while singing the most terrifying rendition of SONG ever committed to film), and it carries itself with a certain dignity not normally found in such films. Ultimately, this is a B-movie thriller masquerading as a social-message drama, and while it’s understandable why that would work for some, it just felt far too flat and uninspiring to be nearly as compelling as it genuinely believes itself to be, which is a shame, since this had the potential to be a masterpiece.