Madhouse
Family is forever whether you want it or not, Julia Sullivan having done her best to leave her past far behind her, not having had any contact with her abusive twin sister Mary for seven years who used to taunt her and threaten her with her dog, Julia’s boyfriend Doctor Sam Edwards not even aware that she has a sister even though Mary is a long-term patient at the same facility at which he works until a visit at the urging of their uncle prompts the confession.
Mary deteriorating, her physical condition now as ravaged as her psyche, Julia leaves the meeting distressed but once again closes the door on that part of her life, focusing instead on her work as a specialist teacher in a school for the deaf and the sanctuary she has made for herself in the apartment she shares with her cat Leroy, a peace which is shattered by the news that Mary has escaped from the institution, though the information is withheld that a security guard died in the incident, savaged by a fearsome dog.
A film of mixed identity known in some territories as There Was a Little Girl, When She Was Bad, Scared to Death and even the unlikely Flesh and the Beast, it was on home video as Madhouse that Greek Italian director Ovidio G Assonitis’ American set 1981 slasher horror became most notorious, one of the thirty-nine titles prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act as a “video nasty,” though it is considerably tamer than would be expected of any film included on that august and exclusive list with the violence infrequent and not overly well-executed, the specific complaint involving the involvement of animals.
Starring Trish Everly as Julia, Michael Macrae as Sam, Allison Biggers as Mary and Dennis Robertson as Father James, creepy uncle to the sisters who describes them as “the miracle of your mother’s body and your father’s seed,” the ensemble and Everly in particular are better than the script deserves, and it is Assonitis who must carry the principal blame for the shortcomings with his stilted and disjointed direction, the film taking its cue from the lullaby which accompanies the opening scene and becoming lost in dreamlike meanderings which stretch credulity.
Julia’s concerns for her safety dismissed by Sam even when it is he who finds physical evidence of a large dog in her apartment block after the guard and her favourite student have already been killed in animal attacks, where Black Christmas holds the reveal that the killer has been in the house all along Madhouse makes it apparent at the close of the first act, moving into a holding pattern and instead depending on a later twist which spills onto the screen with the subtlety and tension of a rice sack split along the seams, the killer quite literally announcing their actions and intentions.
Julia’s eccentric landlady Amantha Beauregard (Edith Ivey) witness to the event and subsequently obliged to run exhaustively around the halls and up the many stairs of the former funeral parlour screaming rather than using the telephone to summon help, the prolonged scene expresses a lack of agency and gumption which similarly afflicts Julia, ultimately led blindfolded by hand into the trap set at her birthday party and needing a big old man to rescue her making it exceedingly fortunate that Sam’s trip out of town has been conveniently curtailed by a flat tyre on the way to the airport.
Madhouse will be is streaming on the Arrow platform from Friday 26th January
