Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.5

Diary of a Madman Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 26, 2016

Given their iconic status in both the Vincent Price and Roger Corman filmographies, it’s perhaps a little surprising to realize that the actor and writer-director only made eight feature films together. While the two previous Scream Factory sets of Price material, The Vincent Price Collection and The Vincent Price Collection II, have necessarily reached beyond that vaunted pairing to include other titles starring the legendary thespian, the dwindling supply of available titles may mean this third “at bat” will be the last. While there is a Price-Corman collaboration on tap here, this set, like its predecessors, reaches out into Price’s long relationship with American International Pictures (and others) to provide some charming if often hammy opportunities for Price.

For reviews of the many films released in the previous Price collections, please click on the following links:

The Vincent Price Collection Blu-ray review

The Vincent Price Collection II Blu-ray review

Flip Wilson helped build his career out of the catchphrase “The devil made me do it,” and something at least somewhat like that blame game plays into the initial subtext of Diary of a Madman, a kind of unusual 1963 entry that finds Price portraying Simon Cordier, an official in the French court system of the 19th century who also happens to have a talent for sculpting. While ostensibly told via flashback courtesy of Cordier’s titular diary, the story unfolds chronologically within its main story arc, beginning with Cordier’s interaction with an apparently unhinged prisoner named Louis Girot (Harvey Stephens), a murderer who channels Flip Wilson’s “Geraldine” and lays the blame on some malevolent spirit who is controlling his mind and actions. Cordier is singularly unimpressed by Girot’s apparent ranting, at least initially.

Ostensibly culled from a short story by Guy de Maupassant called The Horla according to the credits (though commentator Steve Haberman mentions a second de Maupassant tale bearing the same name as the film also provided source elements), Diary of a Madman presages the 1970s rage for demonically tinged stories like The Exorcist and (perhaps more saliently) The Possession of Joel Delaney. What hobbles the film at least slightly is its relative lack of ambiguity, something that’s exacerbated by the fact that the film is told from the “point of view” of Cordier’s diary, something that tends to let the cat out of the bag in probably unintended ways (the film's structure "begins at the end," so to speak, letting the viewer know from the get go that Cordier has a few problems ahead of him).

Despite some unhelpful structural issues, the story unfolds rather menacingly, with Cordier beginning to notice things that go bump in the night after Girot meets his demise (how Girot meets his demise won’t be spoiled here, but it’s a salient plot point pertaining to the “provenance” of possession). An interesting evolution ensues, with Cordier’s kind of weird balance of rationality and religious fervor slowly giving way to a belief in the supernatural and demonic possession. His moral turpitude only increases once he starts using a model named Odette (Nancy Kovack) when he begins using sculpting in an attempt (suggested by what amounts to a psychoanalyst) to free his mind of its roiling contents.

Diary of a Madman offers Price the rare opportunity to both ham it up and play things at least relatively nuanced, though the film ultimately tips over into the more traditional hyperbolic ambience that tended to typify early sixties’ Price efforts. Somewhat interestingly, the film attempts to establish a hint of ambiguity in its final framing moments, at least in terms of how some "outsiders" view what happened to Cordier, but by then things have been detailed in such an overt fashion that it’s largely for naught.

Diary of a Madman Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Diary of a Madman is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory, an imprint of Shout! Factory with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.67:1. The transfer is advertised as having been sourced from an IP, and the results are largely quite good. There are still some typical signs of age, though damage is minimal. The biggest issue here is a very slight but noticeable fade along with some minor density issues, two things that keep the film's palette from popping quite as expressively as it might. That said, there is still an engaging robustness to the hues on display throughout this presentation, with lighting effects like the "possession" across Price's eyes looking quite effective (see screenshot 1). The opening sequence is pretty soft looking, with fairly drab color, but things perk up notably afterwards, and in fact colors look more stable and richly suffused later in the film. Grain resolves naturally and there are no major compression issues. My score is 3.75.

Diary of a Madman Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Diary of a Madman features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track which encounters some very slight distortion in the midrange, especially when Richard LaSalle's score comes into play. Otherwise, though, dialogue is rendered cleanly, though "The Horla" is intentionally boxy and reverberent sounding, occasionally making what it's saying more opaque than the rest of the dialogue.

Diary of a Madman Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Photo Gallery (1080p; 1:44)


• Theatrical Trailer (1080i; 3:16)


• Audio Commentary features Steve Haberman.

Additionally, this disc includes the television outing An Evening With Edgar Allan Poe (480i; 52:55), which contains the following supplements:

• Interview with Writer/Producer/Director Kenneth Johnson (1080p; 21:26)


• Photo Gallery (1080i; 1:27)


• Audio Commentary features Steve Haberman.

Diary of a Madman Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Diary of a Madman is a kind of unusual entry in this era of the Price canon, though it certainly utilizes a number of tropes which will be familiar to those who enjoy the actor's horror filmography. A nicely lush physical production supports this tale of possession and uncontrollable murder, and Price is quite convincing as the addled magistrate and sculptor. Technical merits are very good and the supplemental package enjoyable. Recommended.