Dr. Morte

In MADHOUSE, horror film icon Paul Toombes (Vincent Price) has his big New Year's Eve bash interrupted by the brutal murder of his fiancee. Twelve years later, Toombes arrives in England to visit his old friend and screenwriter, Herbert Flay (Peter Cushing), who joins him in hopes of revitalizing Toombes' old movie persona, Dr Death.

Enter slimy TV producer Oliver Quayle (Robert Quarry), who plans on cashing in on his new Dr. Death show. Meanwhile, new murders ensue. Has Toombes gone insane, believing himself to be Dr. Death, as Scotland Yard speculates? This is a fun, entertaining movie, with Price both paying homage to, and lampooning his own career. Many clips from his movies abound, and it's always cool to see other luminaries like Cushing and Quarry involved.

MADHOUSE is a misunderstood film, having more to do with the end of an era than with real scares. The 1950's-60's were over, and the 70's changed everything, including horror movies. The Gothic gave way to the modern, gory, more suggestive films of the period. Price plays his character with a bit of a wink, and perhaps a tear. Horror would never be the same again. At least not the way it was when Vincent Price filled the screen...

This was made around the same time as 'Vault of horror' and it shows. Vincent Price is an ageing movie star who is asked to reprise his role as a killer a few years after his wife-to-be was decapitated by a killer nobody caught. The movie within a movie is just footage obtained from Prices earlier horror flicks like 'Pit and the pendulum' and 'The house of Usher'. The movie itself has good performances from Price and Peter Cushing and the music is great! The music sets an atmosphere for good horror especially in a part where a girl is looking for Vincent Price in Peter Cushings garden. The part where Vincent Price is interviewed by Michael Parkinson adds some class to the movie and also some terror as the killer is stalking someone in the studio! Overall, the movie has a good atmosphere helped by Douglas Gamleys music and decent acting. The movie is tense with the old dark house style 'looking downstairs with a candle' and some good deaths. The only problems are with the story as this just looks like a tribute to Prices earlier movies than something original and the 70's rock music in one of the death scenes. It gives the movies age away and isn't as timeless as Prices earlier movies. If your a Price and Cushing fan you will like it but for a normal person, its a scary but dim treat. 5 and a half out of 10.

I thought this "diamond in the rough" was masterfully done. Vincent Price is his old self as the true the master of macabre. It is easy to see that this movie contains many characteristics found heavily in the modern day, surprise ending, slasher flick. With many exciting and suspenseful chase scenes, a wicked masked murderer, quick slashing deaths, and an emotionally disturbed main character, "Madhouse" reminds me of a sick mixture of "Scream" and Hitchcock's classic, "Psycho." In addition, the scenes and camera shots beautifully convey the mood and emotion of the awkward story line. Although obviously low budget, it baffles me that "Madhouse" isn't more recognized on the ongoing list of cult classics. Not the best movie in the world, but certainly worth checking out.

Following the grisly murder of his fiancee,Hollywood film star Paul Toombes(Vincent Price)withdraws into his own world.Some time later,he is persuaded by an old actor-friend(Peter Cushing)to revive his famous horror role as Doctor Death.Life soon becomes a living nightmare for Toombes when friends and colleagues are brutally murdered one by one."Madhouse" is a rather cheaply made horror film that manages to create only a little bit of suspense.The story,which is based on the novel 'Devilday' by Angus Hall is also not very intriguing.Director Jim Clark uses clips from old Roger Corman horror films featuring Vincent Price as reenactments of the murders.Still the film is slightly entertaining and it's nice to see two horror veterans Vincent Price and Peter Cushing together.Check it out.7 out of 10.

Despite its star trio of 1970s horror masters--Vincent Price, Peter Cushing and Robert Quarry--"Madhouse" is not so much a horror film as a murder mystery with horror trappings. Very loosely based on Angus Hall's rather trashy novel "Devilday" (in which the central character of horror movie actor "Paul Harvard Toombs" is much more sinister), it features Price in a role that was at the time not too far removed from his real life situation: a film actor who would really like to move past horror films, but who for a variety of reasons was duty bound to keep making them. Price's character suffered a breakdown after his fiancé was horribly murdered. Several years later, after he is contracted to return to his signature role of "Dr. Death" for a television series, a new rash of murders occur and even Toombs himself does not know whether he is responsible or not. Cushing appears as the writer of the "Dr. Death" show and Quarry, in an uncharacteristically amusing performance, plays the producer, a parody of Amicus Films' Milton Subotsky (Amicus and Subotsky co-produced). Adrienne Corri has a bizarre role as a crazed, burn-scarred former actress, who has taken to living in Cushing's basement and raising spiders, which doesn't really fit in with the rest of the film. Still, as a quasi-horror film, "Madhouse" is fine; it contains some great, atmospheric scenes of "Dr. Death" stalking his victims, and despite its flying in from left field, the whole Corri subplot is undeniably unnerving. As a mystery...well, it's not really very hard to figure out who is responsible for the killings. But what "Madhouse" was obviously intended to do, and what it pretty much fails at, is to provide Price with the kind of career summation picture that Peter Bogdanovich gave Boris Karloff through 1968's "Targets." Old film clips from "House of Usher," "Pit and the Pendulum," "Tales of Terror," "The Haunted Palace" and "The Raven" are interspliced to give us a look at the actor's background, but they are not presented in a way that offers any kind of resonance to Toombs/Price's career. I had the opportunity to talk briefly with Vincent Price about this film a couple years after it was made, and he was not very happy with the way it turned out. But purely on the surface level, "Madhouse" is an entertaining, grisly whodunnit that offers good roles to its three stars.