MADHOUSE (1974)

 

(Director: Jim Clark. Screenwriters: Ken Levison and Greg Morrison. Additional dialogue and text provided by an uncredited Robert Quarry, who plays Oliver Quayle in the film.)

 

Review

Based on Angus Hall’s 1969 novel DEVILDAY, this PG-rated American International Pictures [AIP] flick stars Vincent Price as Paul Toombes, a horror actor largely known for playing an iconic, five-film villain, Dr. Death. When Toombes’s fiancée is murdered at a Hollywood party, he loses his mind and spends twelve years in a mental asylum. Leaving the asylum, Toombes heads to London, England, when Dr. Death creator Herbert Flay (Peter Cushing, FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE, 1974) invites him there. Flay is in the employ of Oliver Quayle (Robert Quarry), an ex-porn producer producing a Dr. Death television series─whose lead role Toombes will hopefully resume. That Quayle knew Toombes’s murdered fiancée and attended the party where she died rankles Toombes but, professional that he is, he deals with it.

Almost immediately, a murderer, dressed like Dr. Death, begins killing people around Toombes. It isn’t difficult to figure out the killer’s identity, but the screenwriters throw a lot of red herrings in the mix. MADHOUSE likely doesn't do anything you haven’t seen before (if you’re familiar with the horror genre), but the solid writing and pacing, the over-the-top acting and murder scenes and everything else make this an entertaining film, worth your time.

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Filmic deep(ish) dive – got this from MADHOUSE’s IMDb “Trivia” page

MADHOUSE features scenes from other AIP films: TALES OF TERROR (1962, starring Price and Basil Rathbone, who died in 1967); and THE RAVEN (1963, starring Price and Boris Karloff, who died in 1969). The Dr. Death clip shown near the start of the film is AIP’s THE HAUNTED PALACE (1963, also starring Price), with voices dubbed in to add the Dr. Death element. Later in the film, at Oliver’s house, scenes from Price’s 1961 film THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM are shown during a party.

MADHOUSE was Price’s final movie with AIP. He started working with them in 1960.

During one of the costume party scenes, Robert Quarry wears his outfit from COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE (1970). Also: Peter Cushing, who played Van Helsing on several occasions, wears a Dracula costume.

THE FOOD OF THE GODS (1976)

 

(Director/screenwriter/special visual effects: Bert I. Gordon)

Review

A mix of H.G. Wells’s 1904 science fiction novel THE FOOD OF THE GODS AND HOW IT CAME TO EARTH and Cy Endfield’s 1961 film adaptation of Jules Verne’s notably different 1874 novel THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, this 1976 film starts with a heavy-handed voice-over provided by Morgan (Marjoe Gortner, MAUSOLEUM, 1983) telling viewers how he and two football-player buddies went deer-hunting on a Canadian island where they’re attacked by mutated animals. Thankfully, Morgan’s voice-overs merely bookend FOOD (1976).

One of Morgan’s hunting buddies (Davis) is stung to death by man-sized wasps (that look like flying, winged shadows). Morgan and his other friend (Brian) escape, talk to a local woman (Mrs. Skinner, played by Ida Lupino). Skinner, who has mutant chickens and a rooster in her garage, tells Morgan about a weird, white liquid that bubbles out of the earth and how she fed it to her chickens and rooster─the same liquid that might be responsible for the oversized wasps.

Later that evening, Mr. Skinner (John McLiam), back from the mainland, gets a flat tire on his VW Bug and is attacked by a mischief of car-sized rats. More animal-related assaults and deaths follow, including several attacks on Jack Bensington (Ralph Meeker) and his fed-up assistant (Lorna, played by Pamela Franklin)─Bensington owns a company that hopes to strike a deal to distribute the white goo (labeled Food of the Good, FOTG, by the Skinners) for cattle growth.

Then the animals attack en masse! Everything gets crazy violent, lots of arguing, planning, and animal-repelling ensues. More characters die horribly. The familiar ending is solid, believable and (still) timely.

Gordon’s ecological thriller is cheesy, golden turkey fun. There’s a lot to admire about FOOD, released as a PG-rated film (by today’s standards, it’s probably closer to an R). Gordon, known for his big-monster pictures and FX work, wrote and directed this tightly edited movie (e.g., the first ten minutes of FOOD has two giant creature-related deaths). The characters are barely sketched, and the actors are mostly solid in their over-the-top acting (especially Lupino, who make FOOD more fun than it would otherwise be). The practical creature FX are obviously fake in parts, but it makes the film more fun in a nostalgic way. Adding to the enjoyment of these scenes are the sound effects (swarming rats sound like a mix of wild cats, pigs, and something else I couldn’t identify) as well as the suspenseful soundtrack (the latter provided by Eliot Kaplan).

If you have a sense of humor, appreciate solid Seventies B-movies and aren’t sensitive to obviously fake animal deaths (rats were shot with high-intensity blood squirts), this might be your cinematic cheese jam for an hour and a half.