6.3 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Julia, a teacher in a school for the deaf, has a hideosly disformed and deranged twin sister that resides in the local looney bin. She escapes to gate-crash a surprise birthday party for Julia by murdering all the party guests with the help of a giant killer Alsation dog, which gets it's come-uppance when lobotomised by a power drill, in a scene that will offend most animal lovers.
Starring: Trish Everly, Michael MacRae, Dennis Robertson, Morgan Most, Allison BiggersHorror | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.36:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.35:1
English: LPCM 2.0 (48kHz, 16-bit)
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
BDInfo
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
DVD copy
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Slasher films with relatively small casts end up offering a limited guessing game for those viewers who are prone to try to figure who exactly is the “secret” bad guy (or girl). Despite some valiant attempts at misdirection, there are only so many possibilities that Madhouse (originally released as There Was a Little Girl) proffers, and so both early and late revelations as to who is responsible for the accruing body count may not provide much in the way of shock value, especially since the film pretty much gives away at least part of the "mystery" surprisingly swiftly. That, combined with what now look like almost quaint (if sometimes graphic) special effects, may lead some to wonder why exactly this film was labeled as a so-called “video nasty”, though there’s no denying that some of the on screen carnage is at least potentially disturbing. That is the case with the bizarre vignette that opens the film, which sees two (twin?) girls playing, with one of the them suddenly pummeling the other one with a brick, leading to some massive facial disfigurations. But here’s just one place where Madhouse may in fact start to drive viewers (or at least reviewers) crazy: what exactly does this scene have to do with the actual plot? The main part of the feature focuses on grown woman Julia (Trish Everly), who is an attractive blonde who commendably works with deaf children in Georgia (more about that in a moment). Julia’s harridan and obviously unhinged sister Mary (Allison Biggers) is confined to either a mental institution or some kind of hospital (Madhouse is not especially strong on clear exposition at times), but she (i.e., Mary) has a horribly disfigured face, which would lead one to believe that the opening vignette was documenting Julia attacking Mary. The film, however, instead suggests that Mary had been the sadistic child and that Julia is still dealing with years of trauma as a result of her childhood horrors at the hands of her sister. And so already Madhouse is potentially a little confusing, at least for those who actually think about it. For those willing to simply go along for the ride, the film does in fact provide some gory death scenes and a completely over the top denouement that may remind some of Happy Birthday to Me, another 1981 slasher entry that also fell sway to the video nasty “epidemic” in the United Kingdom.
Madhouse is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.36:1. Arrow's insert booklet provides the following information on the transfer:
Madhouse was exclusively restored by Arrow Films and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1 with 5.1 and 2.0 stereo sound.This is by and large a great looking transfer, one with nicely saturated levels of what is at times a pretty overamped palette, especially in some of the gore scenes. Bright daylight scenes reveal excellent fine detail levels on things like fabrics in costumes and even some of the foliage in outdoor locations, though even these scenes can look slightly diffused and relatively soft (the lighting regimens in this film are quite interesting and almost glossy looking at times). There are some recurrent issues with detail in the many dark scenes, and grain can also tend to look a little chunky at times in these moments as well. There is one especially graphic scene involving the dog that is considerably grainier and softer looking than the bulk of the film, and I'm assuming perhaps it was edited out at some point and needed to be restored from some sort of duplicate element.
The original 35mm camera negative was scanned in 2K resolution at Eurolab, Rome. The film was graded and restored on the Nucoda grading system at R3store Studios, London. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches and other instances of film wear were repaired or removed through a combination of digital restoration tools and techniques.
The original English language 4-track stereo mix was transferred from the original Dolby mag reels and has been newly remastered to 5.1 at L'Immagine Ritrovata, Bologna. There are instances throughout the film in which the audio synchorinsation will appear slightly loose against the picture, due to the fact that the soundtrack was recorded in post-production.
Madhouse features LPCM 2.0 and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 tracks, as described above in the video section. The film benefits from a rather evocative score by the typically wonderful Riz Ortolani ("More" from Mondo Cane , "Forget Domani" from The Yellow Rolls-Royce), which makes spooky use of an old lullaby. The surround track splays some of Ortolani's score arguably a bit more effectively than the 2.0 track, and there are also isolated moments of discrete channelization for various sound effects, but surround activity is somewhat limited on the 5.1 track, and frankly you're not missing much if anything by going with the film's original audio presentation. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly on both tracks, and there are no problems with distortion, dropouts or other damage.
Madhouse has an undeniable mood, and it's surprisingly well shot for such an otherwise lo-fi effort, but it has too many culprits, include of the canine variety, as well as several story elements that frankly don't make much sense. This is another cult release that will certainly appeal to genre aficionados, and as usual Arrow has provided excellent technical merits and some winning supplements.
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