The Mansion of Madness

Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon (the more appealing a.k.a of this film) surely is one of the most bizarre films I ever saw. But then again, it qualifies as Mexican exploitation and you never know what to expect from these guys… I would love to summarize the plot a little but that's nearly impossible considering this is an incoherent series of absurdity, sleaze and semi-psychedelic stuff. The closest I can get is describing how the story takes place in a French asylum hidden in the woods, where doctor Tarr and professor Feather feast their most perverted barbarities on the poor and helpless patients…and yet they like it! My personal favorite is a guy – referred to as Mr. Chicken – who lives in a pen, alongside the other poultry. You should see how happy he is!! The screenplay is supposed to be adapted from an Edgar Allen Poe story but, even though I haven't read it, I suspect that the premise is replenished with many elements from the makers' own wicked imagination. As often the case with this type of cheap exploitation films, it features a surprisingly stylish cinematography and many addictive elements. Especially the mesmerizing opening sequence, with its wonderful blaze of colors, immediately draws your attention. The use of silly music is hilarious and you can only feel sympathy for the actor while they're attempting to rattle their exaggeratedly complex dialogues. This is the kind of cinema that normal human beings refer to as crap and complete rubbish. Only the people with a macabre sense of humor love it and regret that there aren't more films like this to find. I, for one, am proud to have it in my cult-collection.

If Terry Gilliam and Alejandro Jodorowsky joined forces and made a film while tripping on acid, the result might look like Mansion of Madness, directed by Juan López Moctezuma (producer of Jodorowsky's equally bizarre El Topo).

The film stars Arthur Hansel as journalist Gaston LeBlanc, who is sent to write an article on the ground-breaking psychiatric work being done by Dr. Maillard at his remote sanatorium. On Hansel's arrival, it's abundantly clear that the man who introduces himself as Maillard (Claudio Brook) is every bit as mad as his patients, and that the lunatics have taken over the asylum, yet the journalist seems oblivious to this fact and takes a tour of the madhouse. Maillard spouts unintelligible nonsense about his radical treatment (which he calls 'the soothing method') while introducing Hansel to various occupants of the hospital, including his pretty daughter Eugénie (Ellen Sherman), a man who thinks he is a chicken, and an old codger called Dante who is chained to a cross in the dungeon.

Hansel finally cottons on to the fact that something isn't right and tries to escape, taking Eugenie with him. The writer learns from the woman that the man who calls himself Maillard is actually a brigand named Raoul Fragonard who has taken the sanatarium by force, released the patients and locked up the staff, including the real Dr. Maillard, who is Eugenie's father. While on the run, Hansel is reunited with his friend Julien Couvier (Martin LaSalle), but the trio are soon captured and taken to be sentenced by Fragonard...

Hardly a frame goes by without something incredibly weird happening, the abject lunacy accompanied by a score that would be best suited to a kids' Saturday morning cartoon (comedy drum rolls, xylophone glissandi, a penny whistle). The whole thing looks and feels like a demented comic-book, with over-the-top performances to suit, but it's all so relentlessly delirious and in-your-face that it winds up being extremely irritating as a result. I think I have a fairly high tolerance for surreal cinema, but this one was just too much for me, with patients lurking in chimneys, random nudity, a band playing bizarre instruments, people trapped in glass boxes, a nutter riding a sheep carcass, a dance routine from three weirdos covered in feathers, a man hidden by celery, and Fragonard being shot whilst wielding a turtle.

Not as much a horror movie as the (real cool) Magnum video case lets on, it can be pretty scary and disturbing. Kind of like Gilliam's Baron Munchausen crossed with Fellini Satyricon crossed with any movie where the inmates run the asylum. I'd say it had a pretty high budget and a large cast. I figured it would be some Al Adamson type of film in a cardboard dungeon. Well the atmosphere is great and the shots are cool and very European. Based on a Poe story so the concepts and dialogue are pretty memorable. There are really creative sets and props I never would expect to see. I wonder why more people have not heard of it?

I've waited a long time to see DR TARR'S TORTURE DUNGEON and after I watched it, I was really disappointed by it. It's not the Baroque film I expected it to be. The trailer (which I saw on a Something Weird DVD) is much better than the entire film, which is remarkably forgettable. There are almost no stand out scenes in it and the look and feel is interesting but it doesn't even come close to other Baroque styled movies out there, from Fellini or Jodorowsky. The characters are dull and there's almost nothing dramatic going on, even though we see rape, crucifixion, insanity, etc.

The main problem with DR TARR'S TORTURE DUNGEON was the fact that it was a talk-a-thon more than anything else. It was almost like watching a book. I just wanted the film to have moments of silence or mood or something, instead we see/listen to the main characters chit-chat endlessly about dull stuff.

A missed opportunity.

This is a Mexican adaption of the Edgar Allan Poe story 'The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether'. It tells the tale of a journalist who travels to a sanatorium to report on eccentric medical techniques practised there. This is frankly a really bizarre feature. Right from the get go this is odd. It is sort of a horror film yet its atmosphere is almost quirky a lot of the time. The music reflects this by being spectacularly inappropriate throughout. I suppose with a central idea of the lunatics taking over the asylum, the general off-kilter strangeness is imbued in the music and general mood. There is a multitude of oddball characters that feature throughout the picture, culminating in a finale involving menacing chicken people. No, seriously.

I guess this movie can best be described as a surrealist film. Seeing as its Mexican and made around the same time as Alejandro Jodorowsky was making movies this makes more sense. There must've been something funny in the Mexican tap water back in the early 70's. So I suppose it will probably appeal more to those who appreciate weird art films rather than anyone after a Gothic horror yarn, which to be honest this film really isn't. While it's certainly a memorably nutty film, it would be remiss to not mention that it's a little rough around the edges as well. It's really a mixture of quite bad film-making with some pretty impressive moments. The overall strangeness is probably ultimately its chief selling point though. So if you have an interest in the bizarre then this certainly will tick a few boxes for you on that score.