Madman (1981) on Netflix
At summer camp, Max tells the legend of Madman Marz, an axe murderer who escaped into the woods. Richie shouts the name aloud and throws a rock through a window.
- Netflix3.2/5
- IMDb5.1/107,945 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes36%
Trailer
Plot summary
Camp is closing for the season, and the counselors and campers gather around a fire. Max, the head counselor, recounts the legend of Madman Marz, a farmer who murdered his family with an axe and was lynched by villagers before slipping out of his noose and disappearing into the woods near his abandoned house. Speaking the name above a whisper, Max warns, will call him back. Richie, a teenager at the camp, shouts the name and throws a rock through a window of the old house. Max drives off for supplies, leaving Betsy and the other counselors in charge of the children. Richie spots a figure in the trees and goes to look.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Madman (1981)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Filming was abandoned for one day on December 8, 1980, near the end of the shoot, when radio news reported that singer John Lennon had been murdered in New York, and the production halted for the day as a mark of respect.
- Because the shoot ran into autumn and the leaves were turning brown and falling, actress Gaylen Ross said the production was forced to gather as many as it could and paint them green so the film's summer camp would look like summer.
- Dummy heads made of condoms with fake blood were used for the gore, struck with an axe to create the image of a skull being crushed.
- Joe Giannone and Gary Sales wanted screen legend Vincent Price for the middle-aged head counsellor Max, but never approached him because the film was non-union and they assumed he would decline.
- Paul Ehlers, who had been an artist designing promotional materials for the film, was offered the role of the killer Madman Marz by director Joe Giannone because his years of martial arts training suited the part.
- Gaylen Ross, previously the star of Dawn of the Dead (1978), played lead heroine Betsy under the name Alexis Dubin; she said the non-union production credited its cast and crew with pseudonyms so they would not breach their Screen Actors Guild membership.
- Madman was never prosecuted for obscenity and was not officially listed as a video nasty, but police forces in Hampshire, England, seized the film during the video nasty panic.
