MADMAN (1981)

MADMAN (1981)

Tagline: Don't say his name!

(Horror, Slasher, No Shoes Required) [R]

That’s a good point, I hadn’t thought of that. I don’t have any objections to excluding the younger kids from the campfire. Well, next year I’ll scare the hell out of only the older ones…okay Betsy. 

In this one at a summer camp for pre-teens, Max is telling a scary story about a killer in the area and suddenly one of the kids calls the killer out by name. That is a huge freakin mistake because the killings start only a few minutes later and it appears the madman will stop at nothing. Will anyone be left alive?

Oh man, apparently this thing gets a lot of accolades from horror fans, but there are some really goofy moments in this. One includes a couple spinning around in circles during some whacky love song that sounds like it’s sung by a dude that got kicked out of the Bee Gees. We are also treated to some pretty bad attempts at humor in the dialog and lines like “oh, TP where are you?”, so yeah, if you are looking for that, you came to the right slasher movie. There is even a scene in here where Dave is demonstrating some mad reflexes trying to get away from the killer and all I could hear in my head is Duran Duran’s “The Reflex” lyrics. It’s also probably bad that I thought the killer being given weird grunts and almost emoting while he was chasing people was more comical than scary. I was expecting him to start narrating like the killer in STUDENT BODIES. I get that some people liked the slow-paced atmosphere, but these little issues in a movie that trying to be hardcore horror just throw the whole thing off. 

Casting wise Harriet Bass does a solid job as Stacy, but for some reason is only in 2 movies…ever. We also get a lot of Gaylen Ross who is another horror actress that just seemed to not want to act anymore. She also starred in CREEPSHOW and DAWN OF THE DEAD before getting into directing. We also get a bit of Seth Jones in this who does a pretty good job of creeping his friends out as Dave. Seth would go on to star in 2 versions of “Law & Order”, but stopped acting in 2003.

Apparently, the movie was shot in the wintertime, so the crew had to go around painting the leaves of the trees and plants and such green to make it look like it was shot in the summer. This movie was meant to be based around the “Cropsy” killer legend, but when THE BURNING did the same thing, they re-wrote the script. 

The final half hour or so of this plays out about how you would expect, but honestly, I was not a fan of how this turned out and especially not thrilled by the fact that if they were going to end it how they did, that they couldn’t come up with another $16.00 to make a part II? For what it is, it’s fine, but this one didn’t stand out for me other than the fact that they had a killer that had some “creature” or “inhuman” features. 

Overall this is a 3 out of 7. The story feels a little incoherent and none of the characters get in the least bit developed which would have really helped this one out. 

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