Madman (1982) Directed by Joe Giannone
During lunch at work I have an hour, for half of my lunch I watch 30 min segments of movies on youtube. This was the case with Madman. I heard a lot of good things about this movie, but I attempted to watch it in college and lost interest. Since then I have seen many terrible slasher movies from the 80s and figured this one couldn’t be that bad, that I wasn’t primed enough in the slasher genre as I am now. So I gave it a second go, and this is the first time I saw the entire movie so enjoy!
Movie starts with a group of campers telling ghost stories around a bonfire. The group consists of Betsy, Ellie, Dave, T.P., Stacy, Bill, and Max. Max is the counselor whom tells the story of Madman Marz, a man who killed his whole family with an axe and was convicted by being hanged for his crimes, only to break free and run off in the woods. Max continues by saying that anyone who says his name will awaken him and cause him to track and kill that person. Richie, a cocky douchebag stands up and screams Marz’s name, smashing a rock through the window of Marz’s old house. Max gets annoyed with Richie and ends the bonfire and sends everyone back to their cabins, while he goes to town. Richie notices Marz up in a tree, and follows him to his house. As Max and Dave try to retrieve an axe that is stuck into a log, everyone goes into the cabins. Marz murders Chef Dippy, probably the shortest time a character has been in a slasher movie.
T.P. (awful name) tries to get Betsy to go out with him, but she refuses (smart). After the kids go to sleep, the counselors see Max off and go into the rec room. T.P. apologizes for being rude to Betsy and she goes with him into the hot tub to make out and probably slip it in. Marz is a creep and watches them in the hot tub. Afterwards, Dave is called out to Richie’s cabin and the boys tell him that Richie never came back. T.P. goes out to find Richie, and walks out into the woods where he calls for him. Richie is still wandering around looking for Marz for some odd reason. Suddenly a noose wraps around Toilet Paper’s neck and lifts him into the air on a branch. As Toilet Paper struggles, Marz pulls him down on the noose and breaks his neck. Marz goes to the camp and retrieves the axe from the stump.
Back at the camp Stacy and Betsy talk about Toilet Paper. Betsy wants to talk to him but finds out he is still gone and worries. Realizing that its been a while now since Toilet Paper left, Dave goes to find him and Richie. Dave goes into the woods and comes across Toilet Paper’s body. He freaks out and runs farther into the woods, where Marz chases him. Dave falls over and in the words of Michael Scott “his cappa id detated” by a swing of the axe. Meanwhile, Richie is still wandering about trying to find his way back to camp.
Ellie and Bill leave to bang it out in the woods, leaving behind Betsy to worry at camp, great people. Stacy tells Betsy to stay at camp and watch the kids and wait for the others to show. Stacy goes into the woods to find Ellie and Bill. She informs Ellie and Bill about the disappearances and they go to find them. Stacy goes back to the camp and gets in her car and drives off into the woods. Marz was about the grab the handle when she took off, how she didn’t see him is beyond me. Bill pulls out of Ellie and they get dressed and take his car to go search for the others. Stacy begins to look around for Dave, Toilet Paper, and Richie. Stacy finds Dave’s body laying on the ground without a head, she screams and rushes back to her car, only to find that it wont start because this is a slasher movie. She opens the hood and Marz jumps down on it, causing it to slam down on Stacy.
Ellie sees Marz at Stacy’s car and screams, causing him to flee with Stacy’s body. Why he runs off this one time is beyond me. Ellie tells Bill that she saw Marz at the car and they go to check it out, get in and drive back. The car stalls and Bill opens the hood to find Stacy’s head on the engine. Ellie comes out and screams, and bill discards the head. The two enter the car and drive off, but Marz grabs Bill from the window and the car crashes. Eliie “falls” out of the car. I use the quotations because the bitch obviously jumped, I mean, how does the door just magically open from the front of the car hitting a tree? Marz snaps Bill’s back and Ellie runs back to camp.
Richie goes back to Marz’s house, only to get scared shitless from something. Back at camp, Betsy is in the girl’s cabin and doesn’t see Ellie coming back. Ellie then goes into the kitchen, looking for Betsy. She goes outside and Marz chases her around so she hides in the refrigerator, what an idiot. Thinking he left, she climbs out but Marz slams an axe into her chest. Betsy finally leaves the cabin and sees Marz running around camp, so she grabs a shotgun and makes her way to the kitchen. Marz slams Ellie at a window, causing her to accidentally shoot her. She backs out and runs to the kids, waking them and telling them to get into the bus. They quickly go to the bus and she joins them, driving the bus away, only to have Marz attempt to board. She beats his hand with a broom and has a boy drive the bus. She gets out and has the boy drive the others to safety while she hunts Marz. She follows him to his house and goes inside. Marz hides in the darkness and slowly appears then attacks her. He cuts her cheek with his clawed hand and drags her into the basement. She is an atrocious actor at this point, making groaning noises like a cat. I yelled “shut the hell up bitch” during this scene because of how terrible her groans and screams are. Marz then impales her on a coat rack; she pulls out a hunting knife and stabs him in the shoulder, causing him to knock over a candle. The house burns down and who knows if Marz dies, they really don’t say. In the end, Max comes back to find Richie who says that Madman Marz is in fact, real.
Well, it wasn’t as bad as I originally thought. The kills were solid and the gore was decent for being low budget. A little more variety in the kills would’ve been cool, he basically just cuts people’s heads off. For being shot completely at night, you can actually see what is going on, unlike Humongous or The Final Terror. Madman Marz looks kind of cool, nothing too great but they at least tried. There are two sex scenes, which is a little excessive and you really don’t see any boobs which is sad, but you see guy butt, if you’re into that kind of thing. The acting is meh, Betsy can’t scream which is a major flaw in a final girl. Is she the final girl? Beats me! They never show if she lives or not. I suppose Richie is a the final boy? Max is a really strange dude, and made me feel uneasy. Max is the kind of counselor that would get arrested for sexual harassment or something, really just odd and unsettling. I’m not sure that was the goal of that character but he comes off as a creeper now. If you love slasher movies, you can do much worse than Madman. I would give this a C, its not bad, not great. It is somewhere between The Burning and Rocktober Blood on my slasher scale. It is free in its entirety on Youtube, so give it a watch and enjoy Halloween week!
