April 19th, 2019
Written by: Joe Giannone, Gary Sales
Starring: Gaylen Ross, Tony Fish, Harriet Bass
Quote: "Lore of the campfire telling of his horror, Lost in the woods with the madman and the stars. Don't laugh at the tell, heed if you call him. The legend lives, beware the Madman Marz. The legend lives, beware the Madman Marz."
Trivia: Paul Ehlers's son Jonathan Ehlers was born during the shooting of the movie. Paul received the news that his wife was in labor while filming a scene in full Madman Marz make-up. Paul went immediately to the hospital and held his newborn son for the first time while still wearing some of his Marz make-up and overalls covered with fake blood.
Madman is a film from the early days of the slasher film heyday. While Halloween started it all, it was 1980's Friday the 13th that really taught filmmakers that an insane amount of money could be made on a small budget by having a masked person hack away at teenage kids. Following Friday the 13th came hundreds of ripoffs. Some of them better and some of them worse. Unfortunately, Madman is one of the latter. On paper, Madman has everything that should make it a solid early 80s slasher: a mythology built around the killer, secluded camp woods location, brief nudity, gruesome kills, and a dope score and theme song. However, none of it really plays on the screen. The acting is bad. The story is drawn out. The killer looks silly. There are plot points that have nothing to do with the story and only distract. I first saw this movie a dozen or so years ago and remember really wanting to like it. The intro had all the makings of a potentially great film: a black and red still screen with the great theme song playing. However, I remember nearly falling asleep during this first viewing. Luckily, this was another Joe Bob Brigg's Last Drive In movie, which gave me the perfect opportunity to rewatch it. Joe Bob (of course) goes way in depth on all the finer points of the movie. Unfortunately though, the movie is just as bad as I remember and generally I agree with Joe Bob on this one, so I'll keep this review short.
Basic Plot: Movie begins with a campfire ghost story that explains the legend of Madman Marz who murdered his entire family with an axe (convenient exposition plot tool). One kid, named Richie taunts Madman Marz and throws a rock breaking a window at his old house... Richie will literally spend the next eighty minutes wandering around the woods somewhat aimlessly. The counselors go back to their cabins to get high and screw while Madman Marz begins to kill them off one by one. It seems like they are building a twist by having the camp director, who conveniently left before the killings began, be the killer. But nope, it's Madman Marz. No twist, no scares. The movie ends with Max coming back and finding a terrified Richie, who exclaims, "He's real. Madman Marz is real."
As an early eighties slasher, there is almost a rule that there needs to be some nudity. However, this movie goes about it in all the wrong ways. The filmmakers try, and fail, to make the scene sexy by having the girl and her boyfriend have a romantic scene in a hot tub. The nudity is so brief that I actually missed it (my wife had to point it out to me afterwards). The two then spend what seems like ten minutes moving around the perimeter of the hot tub while an awfully sung "romantic" song (sung by the male actor) plays to dizzying and nauseating effect. It is abundantly clear that there is no chemistry between the two actors and neither they nor me, the viewer, want anything to happen.
The rest of the movie is drawn out and slow. It could be because the acting is so bad that I really had no buy in and could care less what happens to any of the characters in the movie. I don't get it. There really is almost no plot to get in the way, so the movie should have just been a fun kill-fest! However, much of the film focuses on the counselors being stoned and wandering around. Never before has axe murdering been so monotonous and boring.
The kill scenes, along with the theme song/score are the only redeemable parts of the movie. Special effects wise, the filmmakers do a great job of creating gory moments. The first kill involves a drunk being butchered to great effect. There is also a great scene where one of the counselors gets tied up and hung from a tree. When he tries to climb away, Marz yanks down on his legs breaking his neck. There are also decapitations and multiple slashings. The special effects department did a great job.
One last thought on "the refrigerator scene." For those who have seen the movie, you know exactly what scene I am writing about. This scene rivals the Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull refrigerator scene where a refrigerator saved Indie from a nuclear explosion (they made them better back in the days). In Madman, a female counselor (with a distractingly ridiculous voice) is trying to escape from Marz. Seeing the refrigerator, she throws out all the food and hides inside. Stupid? Yes. However, this was one of the few scenes that stuck with me since I first saw the movie all those years ago. And I like it!... but I don't know why...
Not goofy enough to make it funny and certainly not scary enough to make it a good horror movie, Madman lacks any qualities that would make it rewatchable (aside from the theme song).
...what's your thoughts?
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