The Asphyx is a 1972

1972 in film

The year 1972 in film involved some significant events.-Top grossing films :- Awards :Academy Awards:*Avanti!, directed by Billy Wilder, starring Jack Lemmon and Juliet MillsB...

 British

Cinema of the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom has had a major influence on modern cinema. The first moving pictures developed on celluloid film were made in Hyde Park, London in 1889 by William Friese Greene, a British inventor, who patented the process in 1890. It is generally regarded that the British film industry...

 horror film

Horror film

Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...

 directed by Peter Newbrook

Peter Newbrook

Peter Austin Harley Newbrook BSC was a British born cinematographer, director, producer and writer.Newbrook was born in Chester and educated at the Chester, and Worcester Cathedral schools, and the Ewell Castle School. He began his career as a trainee cameraman and focus puller with Warner...

. Also known as Spirit of the Dead and The Horror of Death, it stars Robert Stephens

Robert Stephens

Sir Robert Stephens was a leading English actor in the early years of England's Royal National Theatre.-Early life and career:...

 and Robert Powell

Robert Powell

Robert Powell is an English television and film actor, probably most famous for his title role in Jesus of Nazareth and as the fictional secret agent Richard Hannay...

.

Plot

The Asphyx tells the exploits of rich scientist-philanthropist Sir Hugo Cunningham, who discovers an unexplainable blur being recorded while he searches the negatives of dying men whom he had recorded. Later on, at a party, he is making a motion picture of his wife-to-be and son, who are boating in a lake, and ends up filming their accidental deaths as well. At first, Cunningham does not realize that he has captured that same misshapen blur on the camera, but once he does, he comes to a conclusion: that the blur is a person's soul leaving the body. It is not until he re-examines the pictures and film however, that he makes the startling discovery that the blur was not moving away from the bodies of those who were dying, it was moving TOWARDS them. After doing some research, the good Doctor finds that he has found a ticket to immortality through the blur, an ancient Greek spirit known as an "Asphyx". According to legends, the spirit will appear only at the moment of a person's death to take them away to the Underworld. Cunningham, in his brilliant madness soon deduces that if he can only stop this process from happening at all, it would make any person immortal and unable to die—unless their particular Asphyx is released.

The Doctor soon goes to his task and makes a deal with his adopted son for help in perfecting and utilizing the procedures, and from there his laboratory becomes filled with torturous devices and instruments of death. He soon comes to understand however, that immortality comes at a high price, not easily fulfilled by mortal man.

Cast

• Robert Stephens
  Robert Stephens
  Sir Robert Stephens was a leading English actor in the early years of England's Royal National Theatre.-Early life and career:...
  
  
• Robert Powell
  Robert Powell
  Robert Powell is an English television and film actor, probably most famous for his title role in Jesus of Nazareth and as the fictional secret agent Richard Hannay...
  
  
• Jane Lapotaire
  Jane Lapotaire
  Jane Lapotaire is a British actress.She studied at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in the 1960s. Her role in the title role of Marie Curie first brought her to wide attention...
  
  
• Alex Scott
  Alex Scott (actor)
  Alex Scott is an Australian–British television actor best known for his appearances in British television productions of the 1960s, including The Avengers, Danger Man, The Saint and the final episode of Randall and Hopkirk .He made over 60 appearances on British TV between 1955 and the 1990s but...
  
  
• Ralph Arliss
  Ralph Arliss
  Ralph Arliss is a British actor.His television credits include: Doctor Who , Z Cars, The Sweeney, Survivors, Return of the Saint, Secret Army, Love for Lydia, Shoestring, Airline, The Jewel in the Crown, Dempsey & Makepeace, Call Me Mister, Boon, Prime Suspect, Casualty and The...
  
  
• Fiona Walker
  Fiona Walker
  Fiona Walker is an English actress, known for numerous theatre and television roles between the 1960s and 1990s.Her best remembered TV part is poaaibly the role of Agrippina in the BBC adaptation of I, Claudius , directed by Herbert Wise...
  
  
• Terry Scully
  Terry Scully
  Terry Scully was a British theatre and television actor.After making his name in the theatre, from the 1960s onwards he became more known for TV work...
  
  
• John Lawrence
• David Grey
• Tony Caunter
  Tony Caunter
  Anthony Peter "Tony" Caunter is a British actor best known for his role as Jack Shepherd in the Yorkshire TV sitcom Queenie's Castle and also his portrayal of Roy Evans in EastEnders from 1994-2003....
  
  
• Paul Bacon

Remake

On 30 October 2009, it was announced that Black & Blue Films was planning to shoot a remake of the movie. Slated to begin principal photography

Principal photography

thumb|300px|Film production on location in [[Newark, New Jersey]].Principal photography is the phase of film production in which the movie is filmed, with actors on set and cameras rolling, as distinct from pre-production and post-production....

in early 2011, the new version would star Alison Doody as the lead actress, and Matthew McGuchan in the director's seat.