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Tales That Witness Madness [VHS]

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Fans of "THE TWILIGHT ZONE", "TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE", and other horror anthologies will relish this ghoulishly entertaining four part horror film. The movie opens at an asylum in England run by Donald Pleasance who has just recently solved four fascinating cases. This leads to the four patients relating in flashbacks the shocking stories that led them to be brought to the asylum. The first tale, "Mr. Tiger", is about a boy who introduces his bickering parents to his IMAGINARY pet tiger. In "Penny Farthing", an old-fashioned bicycle sends its owner back in time to unveil a horrible crime. The third and best segment, "Mel", stars the beautiful and sexy Joan Collins as a housewife who finds herself competing with her husband's beloved pet tree! And the fourth and final segment, "Luau", is a riveting tale of voodoo and cannibalism featuring Kim Novak as a mother who is better off not knowing what's for dinner. A crazy compilation, but each tale is well-presented and strangely entertaining. A must for fans of way-out horror films. Directed by Freddie Francis reponsible for another equally creepy '70's mystery/horror anthology movie, the original TALES FROM THE CRYPT.

TALES THAT WITNESS MADNESS brings us four tales of terror, helmed by reputable horror director Freddie Francis and released in 1973. HALLOWEEN's Donald Pleasance and the venerable British legend JACK HAWKINS frame the four tales with some kind of gibberish about Pleasance finding out the horrible "secrets" of four mental patients. The first is a little boy whose invisible tiger takes an intense dislike to his bickering parents (including Broadway's Georgia Brown in a surprisingly banal performance); Peter McEnery and Suzy Kendall fare a little better in the muddled, but spooky, tale of a bicycle that takes McEnery into the past, for what purpose, I never figured out; sultry Joan Collins and the bland Michael Jayston (NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA) play out a two-character drama about a wife jealous of her husband's new found "tree"; and the ever lovely Kim Novak overemotes her way through a lurid tale about human sacrifice and a particularly disturbing luau. More imaginative direction and some recasting might have made this a classic; however, as it is, it's fun to recapture the style of these horror movies of the 70s. Note that the score was done by Bernard Ebbinghouse, who helmed the Living Strings for several years in the 70s.

A 1970's movie but it doesn't seem that way,due to the fact it's not as scary as movies from this period, Donald Pleasence is the only reason worth watching as well as Joan Collins(boobshot by the way)and Kim Novak. Other than that the movie seems a Fairy tale that is not scary at all and quite boring.

Director Freddie Francis was recruited for this one after he had some success for Amicus films with Tales from the crypt. This film was made in an attempt to cash on the success Amicus had had with anthologies. This is not the bomb that some make it out to be, but it could be described as being very flat. This film fails to develop any real style and just lacks much of a punch. The framing story has Donald Pleasance claiming he has had a major break through with patients he works with at the asylum and then we get to hear all of their stories. The first story centers around a boy who has an invisible tiger he talks to and the tiger doesn't like the boy's argumentitive parents. This story is almost painfully dull, no real thrills and stale performances. The second story steps it up a notch or two as we deal with a time travel story. A man inherits an old picture and a bicycle from a relative and the picture of his Uncle Albert pulls him to the bicycle and that in turn takes him back in time. The story is mildy interesting, but is greatly helped by a very fast pace. This story could have been even better with stronger lead performances. Some Amicus films like Torture Garden and Asylum did not have great stories, but they helped themselves out by getting some veteren character actors to make them stronger. The third story is the strangestof the four, but certainly the best. Joan Collins turns is her usual solid showing as a wife competing for husband's affections with a tree. An odd concept, but they pull it off with decent acting and by showing the trees gradual transformation from an object to something almost human. The fourth story is quite possibly worse than the first if only because it is every bit as dull and it is even longer in legnth. Kim Novak swoons over a client while he plots to use her daughter as a human sacrifice. This one is so drawn out with virtually nothing to redeem it. Freddie Francis did a number of fine horror films such as Dracula has risen from the grave, Nightmare and the Creeping flesh and many of his films benefitted from some nice visuals, but this film has very few of those to offer. This one is worth seeing at least once just for the tree segment.

In all honesty, this 1973 entry into the portmanteau film series that seemed so popular in the UK in the late 60's/early 70's does little to distinguish itself from its competition, mostly due to its muddled script and somewhat obvious twists. If you've ever seen a few of these portmanteau films (The House That Dripped Blood, Torture Garden, Asylum, etc.), you pretty much know what to expect from this one - a series of twisted tales presented with a wraparound framing story. The success of these types of films lives or dies depending on the tales told and, unfortunately, this film doesn't offer much in the originality department (and this film also seems to lack a bit in the coherent department as well). As is also typical of these films, there are some fine actors and actresses engaging in the silliness and it only serves to have you hold out more hope that the film just might improve (yet they rarely do).

In this offering, we have the always excellent Donald Pleasance showing Jack Hawkins around his asylum vaguely hinting at the "breakthrough" that he's attained involving each of his patients. The four patients comprise the film's four stories and we see just what brought them to the asylum in the first place.

The first segment is simply titled "Mr. Tiger" and involves a lonely, introverted boy who converses with an imaginary friend he calls Mr. Tiger. The boy's parents are the typical argumentative, unlikable lot that constantly bicker and seem to have little to no interest in their son. However, when the boy's interest in Mr. Tiger becomes a little too pronounced, the mother and father argue about it until the segment reaches its rather predictable climax. There's not much going on here, but it is amusing to think of this as a demented live-action "Calvin and Hobbes" strip, perhaps made by Bill Watterson if he just didn't give a crap about his creation anymore. The tiger effects are of the not-very-special variety, but they do provide some unintentional humor.

After that less-than-thrilling start, we move on to the nearly incomprehensible "Penny Farthing" segment. I say 'incomprehensible' because I'm still not quite sure what was going on in this segment. Peter McHenry inherits some old junk from his distant dead aunt which happens to include an old-timey bicycle (the Penny Farthing of the title) and a ridiculous portrait of his Uncle Albert. For reasons made not quite clear, the portrait is haunted by the spirit of Uncle Albert and the bicycle acts as some sort of time machine. McHenry goes back in time but also manages to bring his corpse-like Uncle Albert with him (who disappears from the present time portrait whenever McHenry goes back in time). We see some old-timey stuff, McHenry talks to a woman named Polly and that's pretty much it. We get the sense McHenry is supposed to do something back in this timeline (y'know... like Sam Beckett, righting what once went wrong and hoping that each leap... will be the leap home...), but it's never really spelled out. Eventually, all this time travel puts McHenry's present day wife in jeopardy and he ends up riding the bicycle while a fire breaks out. He goes back in time, is on fire and when he gets put out, he's the corpse of Uncle Albert. Then McHenry wakes up in present time, his wife is dead (killed by a knife to the back from Uncle Albert since fire wasn't good enough), his store's on fire and he's got some nasty burns on his face. What a bummer. Now you understand why he didn't like to hang around his stupid aunt and uncle when he was a kid. At least, that's all I got from this incoherent story. This story begs for some sort of explanation, but you never really get any. I mean, Uncle Albert was somehow able to transfer his spirit or his essence into a portrait, somehow managed to turn the bicycle into a time machine, has the ability to pull McHenry to the bicycle whenever McHenry refuses to go time-traveling and Uncle Albert can manipulate things in the material world... so with all this awesome power, what the heck does he need his nephew for? I assume the nephew is supposed to be a vessel or something for Uncle Albert to possess once the nephew goes back in time, but that's just a guess because I've read too many time-travel stories and have seen too many of these types of films. However, if that's the case, why leave the nephew with memories of the future when he goes back in time? It doesn't really make any sense and the only real fun to be had in this segment is watching Uncle Albert's portrait change whenever something strange happens (seriously, if he doesn't like something, he scowls in the portrait; if he's engaging in magic, he does that wide-eyed magician look; his face follows people around the room like it was one of those pictures with the eyes that move). Uncle Albert's a crack-up because he's the most expressive portrait you'll ever see in your life. It makes me kinda wish I had a portrait like that just so I could get a few laughs out of my friends. Uncle Albert ranks right up there with a picture I saw in a Chinatown shop that changes from a tiger to a bikini-clad woman when you walk by it. Neither picture makes much sense, but it definitely sticks in your mind, owing to the sheer WTF-ness of it.

Next up is a tale titled "Mel" (which is another thing about this movie - the names of the stories aren't particularly imaginative and it sort of detracts from building up any sort of curiosity or interest. It's like if John Steinbeck called 'Of Mice and Men' simply 'Lenny and George'. Naming a story after one of the characters in it sometimes loses the imagination or impact of the story). Anyways, this story is about a guy named Brian who brings in some dead tree trunk into his house as some sort of art object. Naturally, this strikes his stunningly beautiful wife Bella as a little odd and crazy. Of course, Brian only confirms her worries as he begins to grow more and more attached to this dead tree trunk he names Mel. Okay, this segment asks you to suspend your disbelief a little too much with the sheer ridiculousness of it - and I'm not talking about the fact that this dead tree trunk is somehow anthropomorphic and can seemingly hypnotize Brian - no, I'm talking about the fact that this film expects me to believe that a tree is somehow more appealing than the red-hot attractiveness of an early 70's Joan Collins. Regardless of how silly the fashions are of the early 1970's, Joan always manages to look smashing and the segment even goes so far as to have her wearing a sexy teddy and looking gorgeous doing it. However, even though she tries to win Brian back by being all kinds of crazy-sexy, he's still in love with the tree and that's something I just can't get past in this segment. This absurdity leads me to my next problem with these portmanteau films - inevitably, there's always a segment where a rather shabby-looking (usually old) British guy is somehow romantically involved with the most attractive British women you can imagine (it's usually Ingrid Pitt in a lot of the Amicus films, but in this one it's Joan Collins). The story always centers on how the shabby guy is not even the least bit interested in the so-beautiful-it-hurts sexiness of his girlfriend/wife/whatever. Now I know these movies are supposed to cast incredibly beautiful women in them because that helps sell the movie, but when I'm watching a story like this one, I just can't accept that plot contrivance. This segment just takes it that extra step by having the shabby guy in love with a tree. Honestly, I don't get the point of this story. No attempt is made to explain why the tree is somehow alive and there seems to be no particular reason why David prefers the tree over the hotness that is Joan Collins. Mostly this story is just an excuse to show Joan Collins running around scantily clad, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I'm also a story guy and I'd like to know just what all the running around is for. There is a dream sequence where the tree attacks Joan Collins and I don't really understand why it's there. It reminds me of a film called 'The Guardian' directed by William Friedkin about a tree that comes to life and becomes a nanny (sounds like a comedy, but it's a horror film and Friedkin himself says it's scarier than 'The Exorcist' - which shows you just how much crazy floats around Friedkin's mind). Anyways, there's not much point in watching this segment unless you have an obvious mad crush on early 70's Joan Collins like I do.

Finally, we're at the last story entitled "Luau" which features Kim Novak. You might remember Ms. Novak from such films as Alfred Hitchcock's 'Vertigo' or Otto Preminger's 'The Man with the Golden Arm' - again, she's another beauty who appears in this film for reasons unknown. In fact, she had semi-retired from acting for four years prior to this film. Why she chose this film as her comeback is beyond me... maybe she owed the director a favor or something. Anyways, to tell you the truth, my mind sort of drifted while watching this segment as it's painfully dull, overlong and just not particularly engaging. From what I've gathered it's about Kim Novak trying to court what looks like the British equivalent of Ian Somerhalder. Ian acts like a space-case and is more interested in Novak's daughter. Novak organizes an elaborate party for Ian, but it turns out to be a ceremony involving some voodoo mumbo jumbo and cannibalism. Yeah, I probably spoiled a plot point for you, but honestly, you're really not going to care too much where this segment is going. Another trap of these films is to always showcase some sort of bizarre ritual based on the culture of some foreign, exotic land - but they always ruin this concept by making the story too long and boring as all get out. The only one of these that I've seen executed effectively was the Zuni fetish doll sequence in 'Trilogy of Terror'. However, that's not what you're getting here. Instead, there's some boring background, some more boring talking, a boring ritual sequence, a naked rear-end, more boring stuff and a boring ending. There, I just saved you about 20 minutes of time you wouldn't otherwise get back. It's like these films intentionally pad out these boring stories to make the film 90 minutes. Hey man, if time's an issue, film an additional story to fill out the 90 minutes. It doesn't really matter if you have no material left to film because most would argue you didn't have any material to make this film in the first place. Anyways, the last story just sort of leaves you with a 'meh' feeling, which would be alright since the whole film's kind of 'meh', but then you did just watch a story about an anthropomorphic tree so I guess you kind of figured the last story would be something truly out there. Instead it's just a bunch of nonsense that makes you wish you could go back to watching Joan Collins run around a forest in a nightgown.

So, after all that, we return to the wraparound story and Donald Pleasance reveals his "breakthrough" that he's been yammering about all through the film. It's a spectacular letdown and the film ends pretty much as you'd expect. While it's not the same old "oh, all the characters were dead from the beginning..." ending, but it's just as tired. In fact, I believe 'Asylum' almost ended the same exact way. Titles come up: The End.

Ultimately, this is a film that doesn't try very hard to distinguish itself from other films in a similar vein. Sure, there's some competent direction from Freddie Francis, the cast is pretty awesome and there's enough amusing WTF moments to make you smile, but it's really nothing much. Other films have done the anthology format better and unless you're a huge fan of these types of films, you're really not going to go out of your way to see it. A few items of interest: the film also features one of the most ridiculous scores I've ever heard from Bernard Ebbinghouse - he uses particular instruments in inappropriate places (in example, the ending of "Mr. Tiger" with the harmonica - what the crap? Is this a spaghetti western all of a sudden? What's up with the percussion during the dream sequence of "Mel"? Do trees always sound this annoying in dreams?), so much so, that it detracts from the film. It's not 'Exorcist II' bad, but it's getting there. Finally, there's the VHS box cover... If you haven't seen it, it depicts what looks to be a severed head on a serving plate at a dinner table. It's eye-catching, but it has nothing to do with the movie. There's no scene even remotely related to that in the film, but I'm assuming this video art was created in the 1980's. I grew up in the golden age of video rentals and it seemed like all the VHS box art from the 1980's was highly misleading, none more so than in the case of horror films. Most of the box art represented nearly nothing from the film it promoted and sometimes even seemed to be from some other film entirely. Imagine a Friday night when you get your homework done early, you ride your bike to the video store, you cruise the horror section and find the most depraved video cover you can find, you rent the tape, pop it in expecting to see something akin to what the cover promises and what you actually see is some pile of wall-to-wall crap that runs for 90 minutes straight which doesn't even feature the cool scene that the cover of the video promotes! How many times did that happen to me as a kid? A lot. The only thing more misleading than VHS horror film covers were the boxes to Nintendo games. They also promoted more fun than what was actually inside and, remember, back then there was no internet - they only way you found out if these movies or games sucked was after you already paid your money to rent it (or buy it, you poor soul). Ah, good times...

My apologies. I went off on a tangent on the end there, but this film pretty much epitomized that very particular feeling you used to get when you rented a turd of a movie. 'Tales That Witness Madness' may, in fact, be a bit of a turd, but it's a highly-polished turd. If you're a fan of portmanteau films, you'll watch this. If you're just a casual horror fan, I'd say move on to the next film on your list - you won't be missing much here.

Thanks for reading this far.