Film Review
An utterly mad but, equally, utterly enjoyable send up of the low
budget horror film,
Madhouse
brings together two of the actors who are most associated with the
shoestring spine-tingler, Vincent Price and Peter Cushing. More
comedy-whodunit than traditional horror film, there are few real
thrills but plenty of Grand Guignol fun to be had, with Vincent Price
and Adrienne Corri evidently competing to see who can give the campest
performance (Corri wins, by a spider's hairy leg).
The film was a co-production between American International Pictures
(AIP) and the British company Amicus Productions, both of which had
been successful at turning out low budget horror films for over a
decade. The release of
The
Exorcist in 1973 brought a quantum leap in viewer-expectations
of the horror genre and effectively killed off this kind of cheap
Gothic nonsense, helping the demise of the British film industry
(partly by putting the last nail in the coffin of Amicus's nearest
rival,
Hammer). Cushing
and Price had previously worked together on AIP's
Scream and Scream Again (1970) and
Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972).
Whilst
Madhouse has been
reviled for its camp excesses and rather silly plot, it is nevertheless
highly entertaining and is surprisingly well-made, given its derisory
budget. It is a film that both celebrates the classic Gothic
horror film and ridicules it, in roughly equal measure. It is
particularly satisfying for aficionados of the genre, who are rewarded
with a few glimpses of Boris Karloff and Basil Rathbone in clips lifted
from various old horror films. The
highlight of this mad, self-referential bonanza is Michael Parkinson
interviewing Vincent Price. As the latter makes a hasty exit to
confront Dr Death in the corridors of a television centre, Parky is
left talking to an empty chair, a reference to Price's earlier
non-appearance as the Invisible Man in
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
(1948). This film is a scream, but definitely not of the blood curdling
variety...
© James Travers 2009
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
Paul Toombes was once a major Hollywood star. He owed his fame to
a series of cheap horror films in which he played Dr Death, a character
who makes a habit of killing attractive young women in the most
horrible ways imaginable, but always with style. At a party to
celebrate the completion of his fifth Dr Death film, Paul announces
that he is to be engaged. Minutes after he learns that his
fiancée was once a porn star, Paul finds her dead, her head
nicely cut off, and he promptly has a nervous breakdown. The
police are convinced that Paul killed his betrothed, but through lack
of evidence no case can be brought against him. Some years
later, Paul emerges from obscurity, apparently recovered from his
breakdown. At the insistence of his old friend, Herbert Flay, he
travels to England to reprise his famous character in a series written
by Flay for British television. Things get off to a bad start
when Paul falls out with his co-star, but that problem is resolved when
she is killed, in a distinctly Dr Death-like fashion. Paul then
accidentally kills his director, but luckily he has a sympathetic
producer, Other equally gruesome murders follow in quick
succession and Paul soon realises that resurrecting Dr Death probably
wasn't such a good idea...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.