Movie Details
| Title: | Madman | |
| Director: | Joe Giannone | |
| Year: | 1982 | |
| Genre: | Slasher | |
| Times Seen: | 2 | |
| Last Seen: | 11.09.05 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (0)
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 11.09.05 | DVR | This Screening is part of event: DVRfest 2005 For the last movie of the night, what better choice could I make than Madman Marz, a movie I last saw at the end of Quentin's 80s horror all-nighter during his festival. Sure I'm nowhere near as delirious or altered now as I was then and I don't have the benefit of watching R. Kelly's Urban Opera beforehand but... hopefully after blazing through 4 movies tonight it will still be a fun capper. At the end of QT6, Alamo Drafthouse owner Tim League told all of us that liked this movie to see it again because we'll find that it actually really sucks. Was he right? Um... for the most part yeah. It does have its moments though. The whole first reel or so I think is actually pretty good. The movie starts with T.P. singing an ominous song around the campfire and it flashes on each of the characters, showing them later in the film when they're being terrorized by Marz for just a few frames. I think this is a cool way to set everything up and let the audience know what we're in for: a solid by-the-numbers slasher flick. There's also some incredibly cornball dialogue in addition to the T.P. belt buckle, the hot tub twirling waltz, and the philosophical rumination of the potential for evil in mankind that I may or may not have mentioned last time. Before Marz shows up and starts killing people, the movie is actually very entertaining for me. I have to say though, this movie has what has to be the fastest introduction-to-death of a character ever. Poor Dippy. He's seen coming out of a door with a bottle in his hand, then it cuts to him asleep in a chair and one of the girls waking him up to tell him the bottle's empty, then it cuts to him walking into a building, presumably to get another bottle, and opening a door to have Marz gash out his throat with his burly feral woodsman Madman claws. Dippy is in the movie then out of the movie in less than two minutes. What's funny is that Dippy has the most acting experience of anyone in this film! Actually it's a bit eerie... the main girl was in Dawn of the Dead before this then Creepshow right after this but those are the only movies she's acted in, the guy who plays T.P. was never in anything else, and it's largely the same for the rest of the cast. I wonder if there's some sort of Madman Marz curse that kept anybody that was in it from working ever again. Look it up on IMDb and you will be surprised at how little everyone involved has done. Even the director. This was the only movie he ever wrote or directed. Spooky. So it's late and half of the movies on my DVR are now officially watched. Be sure to check in tomorrow as I conclude this Two-Night event and watch five more movies of equal randomness! |
| 09.10.05 | Alamo Downtown | This Screening is part of event: QT6 As i was gulping the redbull down and walking back into the theater, some music was coming through the heavy door. Opening it, I walked into blasting R.Kelly music. I mean BLASTING!! feel-the-bass-on-the-floor-and-in-your-chest-blasting. I sat down and saw to my far right that Tim League, Lars, and a few other Alamo high-ups had shit-eating grins on their faces, their eyes shining with what was on the screen. They were running R.Kelly's five-part song/narrative video and let me tell you something. it was HILARIOUS. It completely woke me up and energized the inrush of caffeine to my system. That thing would not end, it just kept getting better and better. I couldn't believe it. it was like a 100% pickmeup at like 7:30 in the morning. After that ended, QT hopped up and gave us the dirt on Madman (AKA Madman Marz), about how it was basically born too late and therefore missed the slasher craze and fell into obscurity, about how it was a really solid, fun flick involving many of the classical elements of the genre (There's a group of camp counselers, there's a campfire story, there's a creepy old house, etc.), about how the guy with the cool initials-only name wasn't something traditional like TJ or PJ or AJ or JJ but rather it was TP, about how not only was this douchebag of a character (QT: he's actually an asswipe, so it's perfect!) named TP, but he also had a HUGE belt-buckle that said "TP" on it. Man, after the redbull and the R.Kelly and this talk-up, i was SO ready to see Madman. I have to say, this movie delivered. It was a great classical telling of the woods slasher story, had cool deaths, wonderfully idiotic characters, some decent screaming-and-running shots, the whole package. It was a really really great way to end the night. I am SO glad I stayed and didn't wuss out after the one-two punch of Beyond Evil and Mausoleum. The last two hours of this marathon were total delerious bliss. Roughly 6 hours later... |
