The Arrow blu- ray release's extras are incredibly good, consisting mostly of very insightful interviews with DP Roberto D' Ettore Piazzoli, Mrs. Edith Ivey and the man himself, Ovidio G. Assonitis; all who did an great job in this movie. Just like The Last House on the Left, which is probably the most imitated film ever made, this is yet another take on Brian De Palma's Sisters. An extremely influential film, there are at least three other movies that owe a debt to it, including this one, Happy Birthday to Me from the same year, by J. Lee Thompson (who made the original Cape Fear, among many others) and the Initiation. Cronenberg's Dead Ringer's does hint at De Palma's movie, too. As is the case with Craven's film, each derivation is not entirely unoriginal and is, to a certain extent, usually a good flicks in its own right.
Riz Ortolani, one of the great Italian composers ever, does the music here. Even though the incidental music resembles very much his recent work for Ruggero Deodato, he comes up with the creepiest version of rock-a-bye-baby ever made, from which the movie benefits a lot. The atmosphere created with just a couple of settings, mostly what was supposed to be a rundown, hunted funeral parlor where Fulci shot some of The Gates of Hell, works pretty well. D'Ettore Piazzoli's, whose work in the underrated Curse II: The Bite and Beyond the Door I was already familiar with, color coordinates and does a soft focused, textured, multi-angled and panoramic job that provides the film with much style and quality. Assonitis, creator of Beyond the Door which, as most of his gigs as a producer had no other reason to exist but to rip successful American films off, is a truly frightening experience that this hard, cold fact doesn't ruin for me in the least. It may well be the best Exorcist rip off ever made, which is no easy feat whatsoever. In spite of the several loose ends, Madhouse succeeds at doing what it sets out to do: being scary and disturbing. The lack of logic in his hands works, again, in favor of the film. In fact, the outlandish human element resembles Tobe Hooper's first two works and adds to the viewer's sense of not having anything to grasp on and the jump scare quotient. Also, never have I been so frightened of a dog in a movie! Assonitis knows his movie language well, much better than the average director for hire, even though he clearly sees himself as a businessman more than anything else, as is clear in the sequence where Sacha plays Frisbee in the park or Amantha's chase, which I thought were original and accomplished, even.
A movie that being such a big fan of horror, I had never heard of before. Modest, but quite effective and even stylish shocker. Somebody mentioned in the interviews that Georgia was the third major movie state in the Union. I remember Antonio Margheriti's Cannibal Apocalypse was shot there, too. The scenery, as in this one, helped a lot there. By the way, that's one of the most wildly outrageous, no-prisoner-taken, and well- remembered (and dismembered) Italo- horror flicks ever made. Why hasn't anybody put it out on blu-ray yet?
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