Review of Madhouse

Introduction

For all the interesting, excellent, and average titles we get to review, some stop you in your tracks. Madhouse is one of those. When a horror title turns up, unexpectedly, with the strap line, "Many people visit, few ever leave the...Madhouse", together with a stamped, "Previously Banned", exclamation on the cover, the blood tends to drain from my face. I haven`t even seen it yet and already it`s had an effect. Is that a Rottweiler I can see on the front cover? Don`t know about you, but for me it`s time to grab that cushion.

Bring on the scares.

Video

Presented with a 2.35:1 letterbox transfer, Madhouse doesn`t look too bad and certainly better than my expectations of the usual low budget horror film. Colours, contrast and brightness are well balanced with minimal signs of grain. However some shots do tend to look soft, more so when you`ve zoomed the image to fit a large screen. It`s perfectly watchable though with few signs of dirt.

Audio

There`s just one poor Dolby Digital mono soundtrack on this DVD. The sound level varies from shot to shot and it`s almost as if the further away the cast are from the camera, the fainter they sound. I wouldn`t mind, except that I have to keep my fingers on the volume to boost it now and again. This being a horror film, I didn`t want to leave the volume too high in case I got scared by something jumping out and scaring me. I haven`t concentrated on lip reading for a long time but this takes the biscuit. I even saw the mic in shot a couple of times. There`s some distortion too which sounds grating, but thankfully it only occurs on a few occasions, most notably when I`ve got the sound turned up to 11 and mixed in with the hiss. Another irritating thing about the sound is that the music track is too loud which drowns out the almost incomprehensible dialogue. I don`t know how anyone can release a disc that sounds this awful. In fact, I feel like giving this film a minus score for audio.

You would think that this being a scary movie it would have good sound design. Terrible quality aside, the sound effects are the usual array of clichéd 80s horror film sound effects. The poor synthesiser and electronic drums providing musical cues help with the predictability of the story.

Features

Easy to navigate static menus with trailers for Dark Walker, Delta Delta Die!, The Killer Within Me and Vampire Resurrection. After seeing the quality of this film, I didn`t bother watching the trailers so I can`t comment on them.

There are no English subtitles, which would have helped with the poor sound on offer.

Conclusion

This was a previously banned film, or so it states on the cover. I wonder which country banned it because as it is here, I would only ban the film because it`s complete drivel.

The story centres on sibling jealousy, or at least I think it does. Even reading the summary above I`m at a loss as to this film`s story and plot. The audio is so poor I think I missed the bit where motives were laid bare, so I`m having a guess. This doesn`t explain why the girls uncle, Father James, is actually doing the killing however. There`s no idea given as to why someone is doing what he`s been doing so it becomes confusing and frustrating. By the end of the titles, there`s still no indication and I`m left feeling like I`ve just wasted 90-minutes.

Continuity leaves something to be desired too. There was a scene of a young boy in a situation with the Rottweiler but we don`t see anything happen except to here the vicious snarling of the dog. Cut to the next scene and there are paramedics, a police car and someone being carted off on a stretcher. Skip to the next paragraph if you don`t want me to tell you what you`ll already suspect. Yes, the boy is dead. He`s not the only one to die at the fangs of a naughty dog as a security guard, a handyman, a landlady and someone else unimportant gets it in the neck too. Julia clearly has a difficult relationship with her twin but the film wants to do something else entirely different by using the priest as the killer. He eventually kidnaps Julia and forces her to meet her sister, but all the vital dialogue seems to be lost in the awful audio mix. That`s your lot and I`m still none the wiser for motives.

The casting is neither here nor there with a film like this. You expect feeble characters and yes folks, there are plenty of them so take your pick. What was the landlady hiding under that flimsy bed thinking? I know we have certain expectations that characters need to be killed in some grisly fashion, but why do they have to be so stupid? It`s worse than pantomime, but only just. The story is weak and frankly this is the most boring film I`ve sat through so far this year. Believe me, it`s much more interesting watching traffic outside your window where there`s no traffic. Why was Father James killing innocent people? While this will never be answered, the film`s title seems appropriate.

The score I`ve given it is for the puppet Rottweiler head that got a drill in the head, otherwise the film would score nothing. Isn`t there a shred of anything good in the entire film (apart from the puppet head)? If you count a decent video transfer as good, then this has it, otherwise there is nothing else. Better than average video quality coupled with poor sound, poor story and dire characters means we have a contender for the bin.

I wouldn`t in good conscience give this film away let alone say it`s worth your consideration; it`s a waste of time. The last good scary film I saw, one that sticks in my mind, was May (the region 2 version is somewhat bare, but the region 1 has a commentary). Forget about Madhouse and leave it where it belongs, in the trash.