Lectures diaboliques

I'm shocked - SHOCKED that this is not a more popular cult horror movie.

Yes, the performances are not Oscar Caliber. They aren't even regional playhouse award caliber.

But! There is definitely a very strong atmospheric feel and some fantastic makeup and set decoration. How many avid readers in your life would be in absolute heaven getting lost in the bookstore that's in the movie? Spoiler: all of them.

The books on which the plot hinges truly feels like a book that's as used and battered as the main villain.

The biggest weak point is, unfortunately, the main actress, Jenny Wright. I just watched her in Near Dark and she was fantastic. This movie came out later. So, perhaps it lies in the directions she was given?

Additionally, the police in this movie act like what I believe real police would act like. They work on what few clues they have and aren't treating the main girl as a looney.

Again, not the best horror, and it is a tad goofy, but as a cult movie? You could do a lot worse.

Virginia (Jenny Wright) works at a used book store and is into horror novels when she discovers an engrossing book from an estate sale. It is called "I, Madman" and it is about an insane doctor (Randy Cook) who cuts off people's noses, ears, and hair and puts them on his face to please a girl he likes.

This film never achieved a wide audience in its day, which is unfortunate, and is not as well remembered as the other film featuring the collaboration of Randy Cook and Tibor Takacs, "The Gate". Heck, writer David Chaskin had previously done "A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge" and "The Curse" (with Wil Wheaton), so he has a good pedigree, as well. Maybe with the new Scream Factory release, this will change.

The movie is a lot of fun, with all the slasher touchstones, plus some excellent cinematography that brings out a variety of lights, darks and vibrant colors (particularly in a flashback scene). Even early on, we have some visual cues to "Nosferatu" which were clearly intended: the mad doctor who looks like Max Schreck, and the hotel employee going up the stairs following his own shadow... not to mention Cook "ripping off Lon Chaney" (his words) in the creation of a villain.

The special features on the Scream disc really show how much work and love went into this. A short (roughly ten minute) behind-the-scenes feature has Randy Cook explaining how he had to act, apply his own makeup, and also be responsible for the animation. So after hours on set, he would still be up until two in the morning working on making the creatures fit the scene just right. It is impressive, especially the Jackal Boy, and shows a real dedication (no wonder the man has three Oscars).

If that alone was not good enough, there is also a full commentary track with Cook and interviews with various people involved with the picture. Scream has taken a better than average slasher film and made it one of the must-own Blu-rays of 2015: any horror fan will delight in seeing (and hearing) how films such as this are made.

Bookstore worker Virginia (Jenny Wright) finds herself the target of a slashing madman (FX guy Randall William Cook) when she starts reading the horror books of Malcolm Brand. The killer is utilizing pieces of his victims in order to reconstruct his mangled face, so this means anyone around Virginia is fair game. Naturally, no one believes her story including her detective boyfriend Richard (Clayton Rohner). Director Tibor Takacs followed up his surprise hit THE GATE (1987) with this interesting horror tale. While it never fully delivers on its awesome premise, I, MADMAN has enough good bits to make it worth seeing and Takacs gets inventive with the camera at times. Look for an in joke where Wright passes a movie theater showing METAL MESSIAH, Takacs' first film. Cook, who also worked on the FX in THE GATE and would go on to win Oscars for THE LORD OF THE RINGS series, is good as the unusual killer and also provided some stop-motion work here. Lead Wright was a bit of a horror staple back in this time period, having done this and NEAR DARK (1987). She hasn't done anything since the late '90s and, sadly, it appears she has a bad substance abuse problem nowadays.

For fans of horror flicks, this movie might be a nice little surprise if you haven't yet seen it. Jenny Wright plays a woman who finds that the pair of obscure pulp novels she has been reading are beginning to cause very real events to happen in her own life, as the crazed doctor at the center of the stories begins to enter the real world with the intention of mutilating Virginia's friends in order to replenish his own missing facial features.

The gory premise allows for some great physical horror, while the actual story is interesting enough to keep you watching for more than just the shocks. There's even some interesting stop-motion animation for one of the weirder monsters in movie history, "Jackal boy".

On the downside, the film runs out of steam after the first two thirds, delivering a disappointing final act that does not live up to everything that came before it. Specifically, the character played by Jenny Wright suddenly goes flat. She starts out really interesting and seems intelligent, but toward the end of the movie she's whimpering and starts acting really dumb. For instance, why does it take her so long to figure out that the killer will target people she knows? One scene where the madman corners Virginia in an elevator is particularly laughable because of the botched delivery of the lines. Considering how strong her early scenes are, I suspect Jenny Wright was directed to act this way, and the film suffers for it.

Still, this movie has a great look. The sets are memorable, even if they're a little unrealistic (how could Virginia afford such a great apartment if she's a book clerk? Geez!). There's a great establishing aerial view of Virginia's noir-ish neighborhood, and the acting isn't that bad (except as mentioned above). The graphic violence is also memorable, reminiscent of "Dawn of the Dead" in the way that the gore comes off as cartoonish instead of realistic. Recommended, although be prepared for the film's third-act fumble.

Even though the premise sounds very ordinary and repetitive, this late 80's thriller features an unusually great deal of tension and slick elements. Tibor Tikács' (love the name) "I, Madman" focuses on a young woman – Virginia – obsessed by reading bloody horror novels. She recently discovered the oeuvre of a bizarre but stylish writer named Malcolm Brand. Especially his book "I, Madman" fascinates her as it describes the acts of a horribly deformed doctor who kills people in order to make an actress fall in love with him. But fiction turns into reality when Virginia finds herself chased by the book's eerie doctor and murders are committed all around her. This film contains a few very bloody sequences but it's not at all a gore flick like so many other similar productions from that decade. The power merely lies in the subtly build up suspense-scenes (with excellent depressing images of a nearly pauperized city) and, especially, the presence of an ultra-grim monster! This mad doctor/writer/hurt romanticist is a fine horror creation that'll certainly appeal to every fan of the genre. Jenny Wright gives away a fairly good acting performance as the petrified heroine. Horror fanatics will surely recognize her from the outstanding vampire film "Near Dark" and a few years after this, she stars in "the Lawnmower Man", next to Pierce Brosnan. The hunky guy who plays her boyfriend Richard isn't very convincing as the police detective, though.

Horror in the 80's got marked by a few obvious milestones (The Evil Dead, Day of the Dead, Nightmare on Elm Street…) and an overload of meaningless slashers. Between all those, there are a couple of worthy gems to discover, and "I, Madman" definitely is one of them. Tikács did a professional directing job here and he clearly controls the horror tactics well. This unquestionably is his best work as he later made the overly silly "The Gate" films