The Asphyx

Sir Hugo Cunningham (Robert Stephens - 'The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes') is a parapsychologist who, whilst photographing people on the brink of death, discovers a smudge on the film that he comes to see as evidence of the existence of an 'asphyx', a spirit attracted to those about to die.  After the deaths of his son Clive (Ralph Arliss - 'Kickalong' in Quatermass (UK / US)) and his fiancée Anna (Fiona Walker) he determines, with the help of adopted son Giles (Robert Powell), to learn how to trap these spirits and achieve immortality for himself and his family.

With it's Victorian setting, anachronistic machinery and blurred line between science and the occult 'The Asphyx' occupies the same sort of proto-steampunk area as William Hope Hodgson's Carnacki stories (UK / US).  Its an improbable and fairly plodding affair that is somewhat lacking in wit and takes itself far too seriously by which I'm not asking for jokes or pratfalls I just wished it would have enjoyed it's absurdities and fully invested in them.  As it is it's a stilted mixture of the outrageous and the staid which makes it a fun and watchable curio but, for me at least, not much more than that.

Buy it here - UK / US - or watch it below.



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