Madman

A slick attempt at a slasher with very impressive night photography.

Madman Marz, the film's killer, is a local legend made flesh who kills a bunch of wimpy teens and their counselors.

Joe Giannone's direction of the suspense sequences and ground level camerawork is a cut above. The storyline is serviceable but predictable. The acting ain't worth more than a line.

But do check out the film's night photography. Usually I hate night scenes because they're so poorly illuminated. Not so here. Some very stylish set-ups and artful compositions.

Memorable, thumpy score, too.

This is my kind of movie. This is a perfect slasher, and its hard to find slashers worth watching. It has blood, gore, crunching of bones, all the elements of a slasher. Beautiful. It only lacks some nudity, but I don't care about that. I like the kind of slashers that can give me a rush from the deaths (I know this sounds freaky), but this is one. This movie was ahead of its time in the slasher history.

The last night of Summer Camp finds a group of badly-dressed pubescent teens and over-sexed counselors deep in the woods telling ghost stories by the fireside. A story is told about a local farmer (Marz) who decided it was rather appropriate to hack his family to pieces while they slept in their beds. After discovering this, the locals hung Marz from a tree-branch and left him for dead. However, his body disappeared and now it is said that when his name is uttered, he appears and randomly hacks around for a while.

From here, a story emerges about a psycho killer, aptly named Madman Marz who likes wielding various sharp, heavy implements - chiefly an axe. You always know when madman's about to hack into someone because you hear the creepy bars of music that closely resembles "dow dow dow...eheheheheheh".

The film is straight from the teen horror text book and features the obligatory hot tub scene (featuring a man with a rather strange belly button and a buxom blonde ripe for a horror film hacking). Despite some inane killing, Marz shows true compassion when saving characters with a bad 70s/80s 'do from additional shame and embarrassment by mashing their head right into a car's engine and jamming the bonnet down on their shaggy mess of hair (that's one shonky sounding starter motor).

While it won't win any awards for originality, you have to admire the simple fun that Madman offers. Whether it be watching the "special" campers get separated and randomly massacred in the woods or the screaming blonde try to hide in a refrigerator, there is no doubt that Madman is a very under-stated horror classic.

Some surprisingly old camp counselors anger legendary ax-murderer, so he makes a successful come-back.

Obvious Friday the 13th knock-off, but hey, it manages to be worth a few laughs. As low-budget as this film is, it does well with what it has, making a fairly good villain and possessing an atmospheric spookiness. Gore-seekers will find plenty of blood flying in this one, the gore FX are pretty nicely done for a low-budgeter. The locations are decent and the electronic music score ain't bad. Dig that clunky theme song!

The films biggest flaw is in its casting. While leads Alexis Dublin (better known as Gaylen Ross) and Tony Fish are OK, the supporting cast are completely awful in their wooden performances. I suppose we're not watching this movie for the acting though.

Still, Madman is an enjoyable tongue-in-cheek slasher movie.

** 1/2 out of ****

I first saw this in the early 90s on a vhs.

Revisited it recently.

Well, most will agree that this is a rip off of FT13 n The Burning but this one has some moments of lol.

The film is tedious, there is zero nudity inspite of a lousy sex scene in a hot tub.

The moustachioed guy's girlfriend acted terrible n her chase was more lengthier than the final girl.

Some hilarious description bah our killer : face wise he is more like the blind chap from Rituals (1977).

He runs like a kid but walks limping and the best part is the way he hides for his prey. (While waiting for the moustachioed guy's girlfriend).

Watch out for his sharp long nails by which he tears a female's cheek. By the way his dungaree n strength inspired Victor Crowley.

There is a character Richie who stalks the mad serial killer and he disappears from the screen at 28th min and later appears aft 60th min and within that screen disappearance time, many murders happen n he is still alive stalking the killer. He again disappears from the screen and again mayhem ensues n voila, he reappears just before the end credits.

The editing is horrendous as scenes keep cutting abruptly.