Product description

Madhouse [1981]

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Average customer rating: 3.5

Binding : DVD
EAN : 5034377011593
Label : Film 2000
Manufacturer : Film 2000
Publisher : Film 2000
Release date : 2004-04-19
Title : Madhouse [1981]
Actor : Array
Audience rating : Suitable for 18 years and over
Format : PAL
Languages : Array
Number of items : 1
Original release date : 1981-01-01
Region code : 0
Running time : 94
Studio : Film 2000

Editorial reviews

Synopsis
Julia's estranged twin sister is confined to hospital, incredibly and hideously deformed. Her uncle, Father James, persuades Julia to visit her suffering sister Mary, she is unaware of the horrific sight that will befall her. After seven years apart, an unrecognisable Mary grabs her shocked twin and threatens to terrorise her all over again. A hospital night porter is killed by a dog that night, and Julia's friend Helen too encounters a vicious dog which takes her by the throat. What terrible horrors await Julia she can only imagine...

Customer reviews

review by: s.vernon date: 2007-11-02 rating:

A ROUTINE HORROR FILM
Clark Stevens, (Joshua Leonard) arrives at the Cunningham Mental health facility to analyze the facility. The head of the facility, Dr. Franks, (Lance Henriksen) to look around the place, and Sara, (Jordan Ladd) a resident worker, acts as his chaperone. As they start to become friends, the patients start dying off. Clark has heard stories about the place being haunted by the other doctors on staff, and one patient in particular knows that what is happening is similar to what had happened before. As he begins thinking that his theory is true and more people start dying, the two start investigating the secrets behind the facility's haunted past.

The Good News: This is pretty much a standard haunted asylum feature, and that gives us a built-in recognition as for what to expect. We get the usual spooky appearances, a ghost that keeps reappearing and disappearing, and the general atmosphere that can generate some creepy images and sequences. The opening is one of the best examples, as a series of images just randomly flash across the screen, some of them a little spooky, admittedly. The facility is just as good, and gives off an atmosphere that you just know isn't a good one. One of the more creepy facilities. Perhaps more so than anything else is the fact that movie is able to generate a great deal of suspense and mystery when the patients start dying off. It is pretty well handled, and at times, the clues had actually led me down the wrong path, and for a movie to do that is a serious plus. The ending is pretty cliché when it comes down to it, but it was the set-up to it that had me surprised. The small amount of gore in here is pretty nicely handled, even if sometimes we want more. A decapitation is perhaps the best of it, although an electrocution death is pretty brutal when it plays out all the way. Of course, the main reason why people will check it out will be the ever-reliable Lance Henriksen, and he does a great job in a small role as the lead of the facility with a secret.

The Bad News: This is pretty much a standard haunted asylum feature, which means that most of the tricks and turns will be pretty obviously spotted. The characters are pretty much the same as in most of the other features, and outside of the twist at the end, most of the hardcore fans will get the general idea of what is going on before it happens.

The Final Verdict: While it adds nothing new to the haunted asylum features, take it for yourself how you feel about this. If you like the monotony, then give this a try. If you like something different from your films, then exercise caution with it, as there's better ones out there.

review by: Adrian date: 2005-10-29 rating:

Fun horror film, poor DVD
"Madhouse" is one of the better films that was previously on the "banned" list of so-called video nasties in the UK. It didn't really deserve it's place on the list, but it's easy to spot the scene that probably put it there. Built around a slasher/crazed relative plot, the film stands above it's rivals due to some really good cinematography. The story tells of a young teacher named Julia (Trish Everly) who has lived under the shadow of her abusive sister Mary since childhood. Her adult life has been relatively peaceful until news reaches her that Mary is suffering from a disfiguring disease and wants to see her. Julia's visit to the hospital is one among several scenes that stayed in my mind. As she walks through the ward, the atmosphere is quite dreamlike, with the room seeming like a huge white theatre, festooned in curtains. Mary makes for a rather belligerent and ungrateful patient however, and Julia's life is turned upside down by this encounter with her cruel sibling, and in the days following the visit, people around her start dying.

The film is enjoyable and capable of sustaining interest throughout it's running time. Trish Everly makes a very likeable heroine, and a lot of trouble is taken to gain the viewers sympathies for her, especially in the early scenes set in the school for deaf children where she works. She's rather timid, but armed with a fairly good script, she makes for an appealing heroine. Another good character is the fiesty girl friend who agrees to sleep over in Julia's apartment when events start to take a more sinister turn. Sadly this companion soon falls prey to Mary's brutal scheme to terrorize Julia all over again, and left only with a boyfriend who is conveniently never on hand when he is needed, it is left to Julia to find the strength to somehow outwit her sister.

Although some of the time the action can get rather slow, the film features two pretty over-the top gore scenes that seem almost out of place in a movie that exercises restraint in most aspects. The most infamous sequence is the one that shows just how you can put down a dangerous attacking rottweiler with a handy power drill. The other is an axe attack that is so drawn out it becomes almost surreal. The only things letting the film down are some rather over-the-top performances from the supporting cast, such as Julia's landlady and her Uncle James, both of whom are very eccentric and colourful weirdos. But they certainly enliven the action, unlike the character of Mary, who appears on screen with pantomime-style evil rantings and some very unconvincing looking "facial disfigurement" make-up. This may be due to it having been laid on with a trowel in an attempt to disguise the fact that the two sisters look nothing like each other - despite the fact that they are supposed to be twins!

The Film 200 DVD release restores the film to it's correct widescreen ratio, and it looks superb, much better than the old Medusa pre-cert release which panned and scanned the picture, producing a muddled mess of what is a nicely composed and shot movie. It also includes all the violence, even the dog-drilling scene has been left intact (don't worry, it certainly doesn't look real!). The biggest let down, however is the sound quality of this disc - it's APPALLING. Half the time its far too quiet and even with the volume turned way up, there were times when I couldn't even make out what people were saying. A big dropped clanger there. But as this is the only current release on DVD, it's either this or nothing, because I don't think "Madhouse" is important or popular enough to merit any further special treatment. Mind you if they can give DVD releases to other, far inferior video nasties like "Unhinged", I guess anything is possible.

review by: date: 2005-04-16 rating:
Not a bad film - very bad sound recording
I remembered this one from my my teens (where I watched as many horrors as I could get hold of). It had an Italian feel to it, and as the Italian horrors were my favourites, I rented it. I wouldn't be surprised if it was only remembered today for the rather gross dog head drilling scene (which I got through by being convinced it wasn't a real dog, but a very cardboardy fake). Though I would have thought the scene during the opening credits was pretty memorable, gore-wise, also.

I must warn anyone about to buy this DVD of (a) that dog scene - if you like your horror to only involve humans, or if it has animals, to not be graphic at all, to gloss it, this will seriously offend/upset you, and (b) the sound quality of this DVD version is really, REALLY bad. I was turning the sound up and down the whole way through. The characters were either whispering, drowned by the music, or screeching loudly - not in actuality, but because of the very dodgy sound transfer. (If anyone has been similiarly irritated by the 'Suspiria' DVD, where the music drowns the conversation in many places, you'll know the sort of problem I mean.)

Apart from that, I thought this wasn't too bad - worth a look if you like 70's/80's horror (before all the ironic self aware stuff that passes today), and especially any horrors made with Italian crews.

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