Ruptured Review: Madman

Country of origin- USA

Year of release- 1982  

Director- Joe Giannone

Stars- Gaylen Ross, Tony Fish, Harriet Bass 
   

The film follows a group of teens and immature over-sexed camp counsellors who are spending one last night at a generic and nameless woodland based summer camp. We are introduced to the group as they sit around a camp fire telling scary stories, eventually a story is told by the camp’s manager about the local legend of Madman Marz. Marz supposedly hacked his entire family to death with a hatchet, before being mutilated and lynched by local rednecks for his crime. Apparently however Marz will appear if you shout his name while in the woods, so he is basically the slasher equivalent of an inexperienced dogger. Of course it isn’t long before one of the “counsellors”, who just happens to look 40 but acts like he’s 16, decides to shout for Marz, just for the purposes of being a massive moron I assume. This inevitably ends with the legend of Madman Marz being a little more than a scary story as people begin to turn up with a distinct lack of a head, and a certain hint of being extremely dead.

Considering just how well known within the slasher genre Madman is, I was fairly excited to finally get the chance to see it, oh how I was disappointed. It really doesn’t take very much to please me when it comes to slasher films, all I want is some good kills, an imaginatively styled killer and some horny teen fodder, it’s not much to ask, but apparently it is far beyond anything Madman could muster.

Let’s just list off the basic issues with this steaming turd: The kills are repetitive, dull and have no tension. The killer is a fat hick in a discount mask and brown wig who spends most of the film dodging around in bushes more than a glitchy version of Duck Hunt, all while we get close ups of his grey rubber feet. But worst of all, is the characters and the script they have to “read”. At no point in the film do we meet a likable or reasonable character, as it seems everyone in the afore mentioned woodland camp of generic bullshit seems to be able to construct a sentence that wasn’t written by a drunk ten year old. There are numerus scenes in this film where the 35 year old teenagers who are the main excuse for characters in this film talk, and it feels as though you are suffering a stroke form an overdose of cringe. This lake of likeable or even tolerable characters makes it very difficult to care even the slightest when the equally dull Marz kills then off, thus rending the film a complete clock watch from almost the opening credits, as there is nothing else to save this film.

I would have forgiven this film a little bit if it had supplied some gore or even some decent technical ability, but sadly all we get is some badly light poor blood and gore that really makes me wonder why this film still holds an 18 certificate here in the UK. This brings me onto my final point. I purchased the recently released Arrow Video restored Blu-ray edition of the film with the intention of watching it for the first time, and for this review. However after seeing just how inexcusably awful the film is I have to wonder why did Arrow bother to restore and release it? Why waste time and money putting together a 1080p release with bountiful extras, of a film that has literally no redeeming features to anyone other than the most anal slasher completest, or the most newbie horror fan with no genre experience. There are so many great films desperately crying out for a restored, uncut or even first time UK release, Cannibal Ferox, The Devils Rain, Battle Truck or even Inseminoid are all far more deserving of a snazzy release than this stunningly poor excuse for a slasher film. Madman gets a 1/10 from me, it is in need of obscurity.