Madhouse (1974)

Built around a premise that’s too gimmicky to take seriously, Madhouse marked the end of Vincent Price’s run as a leading star of horror movies—after this picture, he mostly drifted into cameos and voice performances that winked at his glory (gory?) days. Considering how many fine shockers Price made, it’s a shame he didn’t bid adieu to the genre with a better movie, although one can imagine that Madhouse might have worked had a wittier director been in charge. Price plays Paul Toombes, a faded movie star known for playing big-screen killer Dr. Death. Following a tragedy, Toombes gets tossed into a mental hospital, thus marking him among potential employers damaged goods. Later, bereft of better options, Toombes accepts a humiliating offer to reprise his Dr. Death character for a tacky TV show. Once the show debuts, someone dressed as Dr. Death starts killing people related to the program. Is Toombes the killer? Or must Toombes unmask a murderer who’s trying to frame him? If you watch Madhouse, you’ll be amazed how little you care about the answers to these questions. Director Jim Clark, a top-notch film editor who briefly left the cutting room to helm a string of undistinguished projects, relies on such obnoxious tropes as fisheye lenses and in-your-face camera moves. Seeing as how the story is innately florid, juicing the action with adrenalized camerawork was not the wisest move, because Madhouse starts to feel grating and loud very early in its running time. It doesn’t help that Price looks bored, or that the actor had just made a very similar film, Theatre of Blood (1973), which was superior in both conception and execution. It’s a measure of Madhouse’s mediocrity, in fact, that even supporting players Peter Cushing and Robert Quarry—both of whom were as prone to onscreen flamboyance as Price—fail to make memorable impressions. Madhouse gets the job done, more or less, by providing bloody kills and perfunctory thrills. Plus, of course, Price is a unique presence even in the worst circumstances. But Madhouse is plagued by a been-there/done-that malaise from start to finish. No wonder Clark gave up on directing and returned to editing—a wise move, seeing as how, a decade later, he won an Oscar a for cutting The Killing Fields (1985).

Madhouse: FUNKY

Horror Express (1972)

A strange European production that overcomes a bland first hour by delivering an over-the-top finale filled with apocalyptic implications and mass bloodshed, Horror Express costars the venerable Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in their umpteenth movie together. Set in the Far East circa 1906, the story begins when Professor Saxton (Lee) loads his latest discovery into the cargo car of the Trans-Siberian Express, intending to cart the fossil back to Europe. Saxton believes the creature he’s found might be the “missing link,” but once the train gets underway, a series of mysterious deaths suggests the monster is not only alive but also homicidal. Cushing plays Dr. Wells, another scientist on board the train and one of several inconsequential characters who get caught up in the intrigue of determining whether Saxton’s discovery is behind the trip’s rapidly rising body count. Much of the picture comprises talky scenes intercut with grisly murders, though the story gets very strange by the time a laughably miscast Telly Savalas shows up as a gun-toting Russian officer assigned to investigate the troubles reported aboard the train: It seems the shambling killer is actually an energy being from outer space who inhabits mortal shells long enough to find new hosts, a process that is accomplished by sucking people’s memories out through their eyeballs. (Yes, this is one of those gruesome flicks in which victims bleed profusely from their eye sockets.) The icky death scenes provide most of the movie’s lurid appeal, although the choice to make insane priest Father Pujardov (Alberto de Mendoza) look like infamous mad monk Rasputin is a nice touch. Cushing and Lee deliver perfunctory work, Savalas raises the energy level considerably with his absurd cameo, and the wild excess of the climax is noteworthy. Horror Express is mediocre at best, but it can’t be said the filmmakers were stingy with carnage.

Horror Express: FUNKY