John Leslie aimed high, but was only partially successful with "Mad Love", his attempt at more of a crossover movie in the Haunted House/Victorian Porn genre. I was fascinated watching it, some 35 years late (I would have liked to see it back in '89), but by the end was disappointed.
Back at the time I was covering horror movies for Variety and interviewed a number of porn directors who had switched over to the R-rated horror genre without much success, including: Roberta Findlay, Doris Wishman, Chuck Vincent and Joe Gage/Tim Kincaid.
The star of the show is really the house, an oddly decorated Victorian mansion in San Francisco, filled with so much bric a brac and clashing furnishings that one character says it reminds him of the Smithsonian.
Leslie's direction and editing are preciese, worthy of a mainstream movie, especially in a lengthy and cryptc prologue in which Aja stars, dining with an old coot Ben (Walter Electric) who doesn't speak and doesn't react to anyone, just stares. A couple of guys (Jon Dough and Damien Cashmere) arrive with car trouble and Aja kindly invites them to join her & old Ben for dinner. When they wonder at why he just stares she comments on his condition, and their reaction is to have sex with her, while he just watches. This scene is fascinating but unresolved.
Instead , the actual story begins with realtor Richard Pacheco (also responsible with Leslie for the screenplay) showing Jon Martin around the place, as Jon has been hired for a six-month house-sitting while the owner is away (that owner turns out to be Ben, confined to a wheelchair). Jon's a lawyer, starting a new job in San Francisco, bringing his beautiful wife Lisa Bright with him. They're using the housesitting gig for both convenience and to save money while they look for a permanent home in Frisco.
Lisa becomes sort of hypnotized in the house and has erotic nightmares, not of monsters but rather folks having sex, inlcuding two well-staged orgies. She's the subject of the second orgy, actually a gang-bang, and seems possessed by a ghost. I won't divulge the conclusion, but Leslie goes for a shock finish linking the past and the present.
The explicit sex scenes tend to overwhelm the suspenseful and well-acted sections of the movie, and the ending is disappointing. I came away with the knowledge that Leslie was obviously capable of making a mainstream film (without porn content), but for whatever reason did not try -unlike his peers who opted for straight horror.
Besides the careful detailing, the movie boasts a terrific musical score by Leslie regular Bill Heid, including free jazz during the sex scenes that reminded me a bit of Sun Ra, but is listed in the credits (by title) as more of a tribute to Archie Shepp.
