Madhouse
It was a night to remember, a Hollywood party screening of a movie starring Paul Toombes, celebrating his career, his friendship with screenwriter Harold Flay, and his engagement to starlet Ellen Mason, the night sullied first by the crude remarks made by Ellen’s former producer, Oliver Quayle, then by their subsequent argument, and finally the screaming as Ellen’s decapitated body was found by the man who planned to marry her, hospitalised by the shock.
Twelve years gone, Paul’s career has never fully recovered and nor has he, suspected of killing his fiancée but never proven, travelling on a cruise ship to London where he is to take a role in the television revival of his most famous character, Dr. Death, harassed on board by a young woman vying for a role and then finding the show, while written by Harold, is to be produced by Quayle, trouble beginning when the demanding girl continues to pursue him until she too is found murdered.
Adapted from Angus Hall’s 1969 novel Devilday and going through iterations which diluted the “Satanism in showbusiness” premise to a much less provocative concept, originally titled The Revenge of Dr. Death but released as Madhouse, Vincent Price and Peter Cushing are horror icon Peter Toombes and actor turned screenwriter Harold Flay, a transatlantic co- production between American International Pictures and Britain’s Amicus directed by former editor Jim Clark.
Presented on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK by Eureka, Madhouse has much of Price’s earlier role as Dr. Phibes about in, and in fact Robert Fuest was originally intended to direct, the killings staged by a masked figure dressed in the costume of Dr. Death to match those of the character’s onscreen slayings, footage from House of Usher to Masque of the Red Death illustrating both Toombes’ career and adding scope to the production without inflating the modest budget though also feeling somewhat like padding.
A film of an actor losing his mind, in some ways paralleling the superior Theatre of Blood of the previous year, the 1974 production is better than the script, hopelessly muddled after the many rewrites including by Count Yorga himself, Robert Quarry, who plays Quayle, investigation of the killings shoddy with no forensics or questioning of witnesses, among them Natasha Pyne as studio liaison Julia Wilson and Adrienne Corri as leading lady Faye Carstairs, her transformation to subterranean occupant of Harold’s country house a shocking highlight of the film.
With an introduction from horror novelist Stephen Laws, the new edition of Madhouse is also supported by a video essay by scholar Mary Going which places the film as an intermediate between the Gothic horror of the previous decade and the slashers which defined the later seventies and explores the ties with giallo, and a talking heads making of feature listed as “archive” but ported from a 2015 release rather than insight behind the scenes from the time of the production.
Madhouse will be available on Blu-ray from Eureka from Monday 22nd June
