Madhouse (1974)

I thought this might be a good example of the great classic Vincent Price horror movie. Given the fact that Peter Cushing was also in it, I was definitely on board. The two do great jobs, but it was just a bad story. The direction was good at parts, for some I had to wonder what the director was thinking. It's as if he made the movie for grade-schoolers. It's full of plot holes, convenient occurrences and things people would never do. The ending was uninspired and predictable, but also confusing. At the end of the day, I can't recommend this movie - even with the great actors in it.I'm only giving it 6/10 out of respect for Price. Otherwise it would be lower.

This was one of the very last of a kind - the tail end of an era of a conventional type of horror film that had dominated since the 1950s.Hammer Studios were shutting up shop, heading for a last ditch life-preserver in the form of the TV market before slipping off the radar. AIP and Amicus similarly sliding into a terminal decline. Explicit and pioneering movies such as The Exorcist, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, were leading the new wave. Directors such as Friedkin, Hooper, Carpenter, Cronenberg were soon to see their star in the ascendant. The days of plastic fangs, Max Factor blood, Gothic castles, garish Technicolour and a flash or two of heaving bosom, were gone forever.MADHOUSE added a few melancholy notes to the swansong.As the title suggests, it is indeed mad. And there's a house in it. It succeeds in being painfully camp, eccentric, hackneyed, desperate, confused and befuddled. The narrative has no internal logic and the characters who populate it are cardboard ciphers reciting awful dialogue and carving the ham as thick as you like. Yet...Vincent Price and Peter Cushing always do their best to entertain and elevate the material they're given way beyond it's lowbrow standard of quality. Cushing, especially, always acts as if he's been given something of Shakespearean standards to deliver. Price, ever insightful, knows all about dross and attacks it as a matter of course with a sustained barrage of enthused overacting as he's fully aware that's his only way to slap some meaningful dynamic into it. It doesn't really salvage the film, granted, but both these men do what they can to give it some spark of life.When I was a kid I loved this sort of stuff. Back then it seemed to add up better. Now, the nostalgia factor is the main draw. MADHOUSE is indeed one deranged film in that nothing works or makes any sense, so much so that the more absurd it gets the more surreal and curiously engaging it becomes. The idea is relatively sound: horror movie actor Paul Toombes (Price) is implicated in a grisly murder, has a mental breakdown and quits the screen. Years later, writer friend and colleague Herbert Flay (Cushing) entices him to England to revive his Dr Death character in a TV show. Then people start dying around him in gruesome ways and he becomes the main focus of suspicion.The supporting cast are mostly cannon-fodder, window dressing waiting around to get bumped off. They might as well be china ducks in a fairground shooting gallery for all anyone cares about them. There's a crazy woman in the cellar looking after a menagerie of spiders, chat show host Michael Parkinson pops up to interview Toombes and there are lots of clips from earlier (much higher calibre) AIP horror flicks featuring Price. It meanders along in a haphazard fashion until it grinds to a halt with what was probably intended to be a creepy grand guignol conclusion that in fact leaves the viewer thinking "What?" Finally, if evidence was needed of the end of an era for a particular type of movie genre, MADHOUSE is a suitable citation for winding down. Despite everything, though, it still manages to be mildly diverting fun. But that's about as good as it gets.

Just one of many amazingly idiotic thrillers. Won't I ever learn? In my defense, I hadn't seen one in years, and I did think this was a horror film. Otherwise I doubt I would have seen it. It starts off promisingly, but soon starts spiraling rapidly into abject stupidity. And a painfully predictable "surprise end-twist". Who didn't see it coming that Cushing was the killer? The foster parents of the second murdered woman: did they escape from a Monty Python set? They grin slyly right after being questioned by the police (following their daughter's murder), then they follow Price around like some deranged out-of-work mimes, and then lash out at the defeneseless viewer with that over-the-top performance when they actually attempt to blackmail Price with the watch. How the hell does the watch prove Price killed the girl? All it might prove is that she stole it from him. Naturally, Price doesn't give them the time of day, let alone money, in this utterly bizarre and pointless scene.All of the murders had been committed within a rather laughably complex set of circumstances. In other words, you would need a team of a dozen carefully orchestrated murderers – with magical powers including foretelling the future – in order to carry them out exactly as planned, not some old fogey such as Cushing.The murder of the fourth blonde, for example, required that no-one be roaming around the BBC building – in broad daylight – when the killer was first chasing Price and then the girl. Dumber still, Price doesn't immediately report the attack on himself, but first does a live TV interview, which is so convenient for the killer (yet again) coz he commits the other murder more easily. The murder of the third blond required that she be isolated from everyone else right at the time when the murderer needed her to be alone. The murder of the second blond required Price to be hypnotized by his own movie. Hang on! Just wait right there! Where did Herbert (Cushing), a mere actor, suddenly get such divine powers from? This was never explained, in this silly mess of a film.Did anyone really believe for a second that Price wasn't being set up all along? I didn't understand why they would set up the story as a whodunit mystery, but then give away the murderer's identity after only 20 minutes. That seemed a rather daft way to construct a screenplay. It was quite obvious that it was Cushing (as soon as he played Price that old movie), so the only remaining question was Cushing's motive, but the writer thought he'd be stretching out the mystery by adding several more murders – all of which were superfluous because by that time anyone could have guessed the killer.Of course, I knew that Cushing's motive would be something typically daft, because what common motive could there possibly be for the current murders and the old murder he had committed years ago when he had helped advance Price's career? Well, the explanation is as dumb as I'd expected: Cushing had wanted to play Dr.Death himself, all along, hence was jealous of Price getting the role instead, hence the mayhem. Duuuh. Nevermind the fact that it was clearly explained at the outset that Cushing willingly gave up an acting career for one in writing. Hence this movie's entire premise stands on rather shaky legs.The less said about that entire nonsense surrounding the character of Faye, the deranged woman living in Cushing's basement, the better.Still, a couple of very attractive blonds in the movie. Unfortunately, both get bumped off very quickly.

The plot = A horror actor Paul Toombes played by (Vincent Price) whose biggest and best known role is Dr Death has decided to bow out of the profession and settle down with his new fiancé, but after a heated argument, she is attacked by someone dressed as Dr Death and murdered, Paul Toombes gets blamed and put into an insane asylum. Many years later he gets released and is persuaded to play Dr Death again, that's when the murders starts occurring again also...I came across this rather unknown gem late one night while watching the horror channel and I must say that I rather enjoyed it. This movie stands as a fine example of the 60's and 70's features of it's time so I don't why this movie never gets mentioned or even recognised, as it's a fine form of slasher/thriller made movie with top notch acting from the likes of Vincent Price and Peter Cushing. the film is very striking, and looks very much like the other lush productions from this era.The storyline is well crafted and keeps you interested throughout, the death scenes are also very elaborate and very violent, plus there are quite a few of them so that will keep the gore hounds happy. My only complaint is the so called shock twist ending, which wasn't really a shock at all, it was way too easy to see past the red herrings and the identity of the killer was pretty easy to figure out. But other than that this movie is on fine form.The cast like I already said are top notch with great performances from legends such as Vincent Price and Peter Cushing who both add true layers to they're roles and are both greatly missed, as I've enjoyed watching they're horror movies growing up.All in all "Madhouse" is an excellent horror movie which in a way ahead of it's time that oozes atmosphere and features a memorable character in Dr. Death.