Rating: 
Summary: Sam Fuller's masterpiece
Review: A journalist wants to win the Pulitzer Award, and due this goal he gets into a mental hospital pretending he is insane, but few days more he'll know he made a wrong choice because he's in the same hell.
This chilling story is a real anticipation of One flew over the Cuckoo's nest ; and even Jack Nicholson is not here, the tale goes beyond the unthinkable and even surpases the famous film of Foreman.
The script is much more dramatic than One flew, because Fuller made in that microcosmos an awful methapor of what's was going on in that moment in United States.
The horror when Peter Breck is chased by a crowd of men who decide dressing like a Klux's member is gripping.
The film is absorbing and obviously you may forget all the rules that governs the world in which we live. In certain mood this film is a dantesque hell, with all the evil manners you can imagine.
Fuller announces this film in Naked kiss twice.
This work is today admired by many people as a cult movie.
Watch this film even it disturbs you.
Because the reality goes far the fiction.
Rating: 
Summary: A DISTURBING MOVIE...
Review: A reporter seeking a Pulitzer Prize cons his way into being committed to an asylum to get the story on an unsolved murder case. Peter Breck (from TV's "The Big Valley") is good as the reporter. He blends in with the other male inmates trying to ferret out the facts but discovers insanity is nothing to toy with. Constance Towers (also in Fullers' "The Naked Kiss") is a stripper and his loyal girlfriend who notices Breck's mental deterioration on her visits. She tries but can't get him out. He has more or less sealed his own fate. The portrayals of the other inmates are powerful and there are some real doozies locked in with Breck. But I found the movie to be so vivid that it was almost unpleasant to watch. The scenes in the asylum are disturbing. The scenes outside the asylum are depressing and even Towers' strip routine at the nite club where she works is downbeat. Breck's plight is overwhelmingly doomed. This is without a doubt a challenging film but I can only recommend it with a warning. If you are emotionally affected by films be careful with this one. It will linger with you after you've seen it. Still it's a powerful and unusual film worthy of a cult following and a collector's item.
Rating:
Summary: Fuller's strange world
Review: Alternately brilliant and infuriating, Samuel Fuller's Shock Corridor is without question a one-of-a-kind film. Shot in black and white in 1963, it tells the story of a newspaper reporter who's convinced he can win the Pulitzer Prize if only he can penetrate the inner sanctum of a mental hospital to solve a murder that's been committed there--something the police have apparently not been able to accomplish.The bizarre juxtaposition of intensity and immaturity, anger and pulp, outrageousness and illogic tells you that this is the work of a film maker who's not afraid to take chances. Fuller seems to be deliberately trying to rattle or irritate the viewer: a stripper sings a slow torch song and only partially disrobes, a nuclear physicist prattles like a six year old, a 300 pound man sings the same opera aria repeatedly to awaken another man. It's not hard to tell that the dialogue is defiantly pulpy, with emphasis on "defiant". Fuller was obviously enraged with the more destructive qualities of American culture and let his audience know it in no uncertain terms. But with the pulp--and how much more pulpy can you get than the reporter's girlfriend being a stripper?--there's also startling power. A war veteran relates his dreams of living with South American primitives, brought shockingly to life with a rare color sequence. A black man spouts virulent anti-black racial epithets and dons a makeshift KKK hood, chasing another black man down a hallway. The reporter himself wonders why, at crucial moments, he's unable to speak. A scathing attack on the relentless American drive for success, power, and acceptance, this movie, for all its frequently dated, semi-trashy dialogue, ranks as one of the best films of its time or any period in American history. The ruthless, downbeat ending--the murderer is discovered, but at a terrible price--is a fitting, bitter conclusion.
Rating:
Summary: Magnificent Pulp Fiction
Review: Fuller made an exploitation movie that turned out to be some sort of warped masterpiece. Entertaining in the lowest sort of way, yet chilling in its legitimate insights about sanity/insanity and America. You'll snicker at the stilted, overwrought dialogue, and then be blown away by Fuller's crude, forceful vision. It's one of the most enjoyable videos I've seen all year.
Rating:
Summary: High Quality DVD -- A must have for Sam Fuller fans
Review: I like Sam Fuller movies --each one is unique -- some have the big studio backing while most others like Shock Corridor are small films and they're usually very good! Shock Corridor doesn't disappoint. It's classic Sam Fuller. The Black and White cinematography and contrast is superb. The print on the DVD isn't pristine-- you can hear and see some minor defects but the overall quality is excellent. This DVD is by by Criterion (I own several Criterion Laser-Discs -- they are the best) and the packaging is high quality. The cast is from the Sam Fuller casting Mafia -- notably Gene Evans -- the tough Sarge from Fuller's The Steel Helmet. Evans plays one of the many unusual nutcases that you see in this DVD! It has some outrageous dialog and low budget effects that will have you laughing but that's what's fun about watching "Film Noir" genre movies.
Rating:
Summary: raw power
Review: I remember the first time I saw this film. I'd heard a lot about it beforehand, but wasn't sure how it'd be portrayed on screen. I also had the good fortune of seeing on the big screen. From the first scene on I sat there with my eyes and my mouth wide open. It's such an amazingly powerful film, based largely on factual events and people Fuller had talked to - this doesn't mean it's by any means a true story, but what really grabs you is how you can see and understand how real all the issues he talks about were (and unfortunately still today are). It's a kinetic, visceral experience, and the only film that has moved me like PSYCHO did, the first time I saw it. The colour sequence just made my spine vibrate. His vision is bleak, the film and acting can be crude, but the raw power it has will simply obliterate any such resistance. God, what an experience!
Rating: 
Summary: Cheap Cheesy Bad Bad Bad
Review: If this is a good movie, then Plan Nine From Outer Space is a great film. Shock Corridor is as thoroughly inept as any film made by the Master of Bad, Ed Wood. Badly written, badly acted, badly directed. And yet, like Plan Nine and Glen Or Glenda?, there is a vague whisper of an idea lurking somewhere in the general ineptitude. Alas, Fuller's monumental lack of ability keeps it from going anywhere.
Rating:
Summary: "The Nympho Ward got too dangerous for me."
Review: In director Sam Fuller's highly subversive film "Shock Corridor", Daily Globe reporter Johnny Barrett is prepared to do whatever is necessary to win the Pulitzer Prize. Seeking a sensational story, he goes undercover in the state mental hospital to solve the murder of a patient named Sloan. To get admitted to the hospital, Barrett pretends to have a violent fixation on his stripper 'sister' Cathy (Constance Towers), and Cathy (who is really his girlfriend) files a complaint with the Police. After an examination by a psychiatrist, Barrett ends up in the mental hospital. Once inside the hospital, Barrett has to glean the truth from the three mental patients who witnessed the murder. One witness is 'Pagliacci', a HUGE man who sings opera (badly) non-stop. Another witness is a Korean War veteran who was brainwashed as a POW and now thinks he's a Rebel soldier from the civil war. The third witness is a brilliant scientist who spends his days drawing stick figures. Barrett, as an inmate, is subject to the rigorous treatments endured by the other inmates--hydrotherapy, dance therapy, and of course, as the title implies, shock therapy. He becomes involved in the lives of the other inmates and in the often violent life that takes place in the corridor and in the chow halls. Barrett accidentally stumbles in the ward inhabited by insatiable women, and he lives to tell the tale. This is hilarious (and makes "Shock Corridor" a cult classic). While this film is a savage indictment against mental hospitals, Fuller's bold film is also a biting social commentary on the times. Each patient has a different story, but they are all victims of their social conditions and are there as the result of bigotry and ignorance. Those deemed mental patients are just victims of a society that cannot accept differences. The film is laced with Barrett's fantasies--and many of these include images of Cathy stripping--these scenes are extremely mild compared to a typical stripper scene in a film today. This is one of my favourite Fuller films, and thank goodness, it's one picked up by Criterion on DVD. Fuller's films don't deserve to be lost. If you enjoy "Shock Corridor", I enthusiastically recommend "The Naked Kiss." It also stars the amazing Constance Towers--displacedhuman
Rating: 
Summary: Reporter trys to break case in mental hospital.
Review: Johnny Barrett (Peter Breck) is a reporter for the Daily Globe. Mr. Fong ( Philip Ahn, best known for Kung-Fu tv series in the 1970's) tutors him on the scheme they have planned to crack a murder case. Johnny's girlfriend Kathy (Constance Towers) reluctantly is in this too, but she is only in it because she wants to save money to have a normal life. So she is singing and wears less clothing in a dive. She continues the scheme by turning Johnny into the cops. She says her "brother" won't leave her alone. The police call it attempted incest and she signs a formal complaint that her "brother" is mentally unsound. Johnny acts out a brilliant nervous breakdown in front of the doctors, therefore he is committed. But kathy is worried that all these tests Johnny has to go through will make him sick. While in the mental hospital he meets Staurt (James Best), a farmboy who is just as crazy as the others. People dream in color. There are three color sequences in this black & white film. The color film looks like National Geographic. Very disturbing film. Great acting! But hard to watch sometimes.
Rating:
Summary: Reporter trys to break case in mental hospital.
Review: Johnny Barrett (Peter Breck) is a reporter for the Daily Globe. Mr. Fong ( Philip Ahn, best known for Kung-Fu tv series in the 1970's) tutors him on the scheme they have planned to crack a murder case. Johnny's girlfriend Kathy (Constance Towers) reluctantly is in this too, but she is only in it because she wants to save money to have a normal life. So she is singing and wears less clothing in a dive. She continues the scheme by turning Johnny into the cops. She says her "brother" won't leave her alone. The police call it attempted incest and she signs a formal complaint that her "brother" is mentally unsound. Johnny acts out a brilliant nervous breakdown in front of the doctors, therefore he is committed. But kathy is worried that all these tests Johnny has to go through will make him sick. While in the mental hospital he meets Staurt (James Best), a farmboy who is just as crazy as the others. People dream in color. There are three color sequences in this black & white film. The color film looks like National Geographic. Very disturbing film. Great acting! But hard to watch sometimes.
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