Customer Reviews

Madhouse [VHS]

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Paul Toombs (Vincent Price) is an actor who was famous for creating an ongoing dastardly movie character called "Dr. Death" - sort of the "Hannibal Lecter" of his day - and on the eve of his wedding to an ambitious starlet, she turned up decapitated after an argument with him. Toombs doesn't remember anything about it, except discovering the body. There was no evidence against him, so he was released - but his career was ruined.

Now, more than a decade later, producer Robert Quarry wants to star Toombs in a Dr. Death T.V. series in England. The press hounds him, a new generation of starlets wants to social climb with him, strangers try to frame him for statutory rape to blackmail him. The poor man just can't get any peace.

That is, until "Dr. Death" shows up, and the body count rises...

This is not a bad little mid-'70s horror flick, from Amicus studios. It has nice atmosphere and a good cast, including Peter Cushing as Price's best friend and writer/creator of the Dr. Death character. It's colorful and creepy, and a bit gorier than most films of the period.

It's essentially a psychological horror story/murder mystery, and for the most part it works. It suffers from only two problems: abrupt and not entirely believable character transitions, and a bizarrely surrealistic ending. But the makeups and murders are distinctly grisly and effective, especially Price's entire Dr. Death getup. And there are some really nice sequences counterpointing Price's actual past horror films with the murder and mayhem occurring to characters in the story.

Odd, but nicely done, and well worth a look.

When I saw Madhouse I thought is was great!I mean that Elizibeth Peters girl was HOT!I got the hole body count:

Ellen-Decapitated with knife
Elizibeth Peters-Pitchfork in the neck
Party Girl-Strangled and hung
Director-Crushed by top of bed
Elizibeths Aunt and Uncle-Both impaled with a sword
Julia-Knife in the neck
Killer-Stabbed to death