Paula Hammond - Features EditorSay the name ‘Amicus’ and most film fans will immediately conjure up images of classic cult horror … a little silly, a little camp, but a whole lot of fun. And that pretty much sums up what you can expect from Eureka’s latest blu-ray release.
Produced by Amicus Productions and released by American International Pictures, Jim Clark’s Madhouse brings together two titans of horror – Vincent Price (House on Haunted Hill) and Peter Cushing (Dr Terror’s House of Horrors) – in a film about the horror genre itself.
Paul Toombes (Price) is an actor whose trademark role is the enigmatic and terrifying Dr Death, a skull-faced serial killer and the central antagonist of a long-running series of horror films. When Toombes’ fiancée Ellen (Julie Crosthwait) is murdered in mysterious circumstances by an assailant dressed as Dr Death, the actor wonders if he has succumbed to madness – a question he will be forced to reckon with again when, years later, people begin dying on the set of a new television series based on his most famous character.Better known as an editor whose credits include Marathon Man, The Killing Fields and The Mission, Jim Clark made his greatest achievement as a director with Madhouse – a genuinely original and gloriously self-aware horror film that bridges the gap between the gothic chillers of old and the more visceral genre pictures of the 1970s.
Madhouse won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. 1970s sexist stereotypes abound and, like many films that dip into the slasher genre, much of its ‘entertainment’ value is based on brutalising women. Still, Price and Cushing always give great value for money. The plot is wonderfully meta and self-aware, and while Madhouse may not be top tier Amicus, it’s great to see one of the last gothic thrillers of the 1970 finally get the blu-ray release it deserves.
