Madman (1982)

Written and Directed by Joe Giannone

The early 1980's were a strange time for cinema. The industry was booming, new filmmakers were getting jobs every day, and film schools were churning out more graduates and accepting more applicants on a daily basis. Of course, this led to many revolutions within the industry, such as the increase of the amount of horror films, and the addition of gore to these films, something that previously had been taboo. When a little film called "Friday the 13th" came along, it completely changed the way studios thought about horror films, before they were considered drive in trash, cheapies to make a quick buck. But when Friday the 13th grossed $40 million on a $700,000 budget, it of course sprung up numerous copycats and imitators, which, luckily for us fans, were not half bad for the most part.

Madman is one of these imitators, but in a bit of strange irony, Joe Giannone's film actually set the stage for what the Jason movies would become, an already dead, semi-mutant psycho that stalks and kills campers based on legend. An interesting tidbit about Madman, it was originally going to be based on the Cropsy Maniac legend, but when they were about to start shooting, they heard that there was another movie filming close by, which turned out to be The Burning, and when they heard that film was already using the Cropsy Maniac as the basis for their story, they changed it around slightly into Madman Marz. Hey, I would've been satisfied with two Cropsy films, but in this case we have two different killers, some equally cool make up, and some equally cool kills.

Since this is Rotten Reviews, I'm assuming most people know the basic plot of this movie, but for review's sake, it goes like this. One night, for no real reason, a farmer named Marz snapped and killed his wife and children. The local townspeople formed a lynchmob and strung old Marz up, leaving him for dead in the woods and slicing his face with an axe. However, when they went the next morning to cut the body down, it was gone, and so were the bodies of Marz' family. This is all told around a campfire, the classic set up for summer camp slasher films, and of course the one cocky moron kid has to get up and challenge Marz to come and get him, to show off how tough he is. So of course, the Marz legend turns out to be real, and the kids of the camp are stalked and slashed one by one.

As I said before, there isn't a whole lot of originality to this film, but it's not a bad story once you know it was basically rewritten at the last minute, and it's a legend that can basically stand up to the other summer camp slashers like it. The make up on Marz is pretty cool and inventive, like I said, you can tell that the make up for Jason in the later Friday the 13th films was at least partially based on Marz in this film, and so was the fact that he was a large, hulking monster with superhuman strength even though he is already dead (maybe?).

None of the kills are spectacularly inventive, but at the same time the special effects are well done, and this film has superb direction and cinematography, especially considering the fact that it's a low budget horror film where these aspects were usually not the highest priority. The way the camera moves and the shots from Marz' POV are well done, good early examples of StediCam work, showing they also took a few cues from John Carpenter and Halloween. However, all of these elements together, along with a pretty interesting original score, some half-decent acting, and an even pace make Madman one of the more pleasurable slasher outings of the 1980's. People may talk bad about these types of films, but there are few shining examples of good ones, and Madman is one of these, even if it doesn't get the same love and respect that The Burning and Friday the 13th get.

7.1/10