Director: Jim Clark
Screenplay: Ken Levison, Greg Morrison
Starring: Vincent Price, Peter Cushing, Robert Quarry, Adrienne Corri
Country:Â UK
Year:Â 1974
Madhouse (1974) is a British campy meta take on the proto-slasher movie, eerily similar to the Scream franchise.
There’s a fairly tame feel to the Vincent Price and Peter Cushing vehicle which has been released on Bluray by Eureka as part of its Classics strand, and not as part of the Masters of Cinema series. Film studio American International Pictures viewed the film as such a disaster, it stopped distributing these sorts of movies after a long legacy of gothic-horrors starring Price.
The 1080p restoration is crisp and clear, offering up mesmerising sequences with a satisfying trace of grain amid the picture. The kills are punctuated with dark brooding injections of colour. The dark colour palette builds up a foreboding sense of mystery.
The film was directed by Jim Clark, more well known for editing revered films like Marathon Man (1976), The Killing Fields (1984), and Vera Drake (2004), and based on a 1969 novel called Devilday by author Angus Hall. The book supposedly featured more occult themes that were wiped from the adaptation.
Price is reliably on form and more likeable than usual as he’s playing an innocent, for once, caught up in all the horror. Starring opposite him is Cushing who is in the background for much of the film before becoming more prominent towards the end, and then he explodes with a mad erratic energy.
Another seasoned horror-vet Robert Quarry appears as a devious suspicious producer. Adrienne Corri gives a particularly great performance as a crazed woman obsessed with spiders – very creepy.
The film has a campy tone with influences from the German krimi and Italian giallo movies – genres that had exploded in popularity across Europe in the 60s. They pay homage and parody these elements through the masked slasher, various point of view shots, kill and chase sequences.
While Price and Cushing gave reliably strong performances, the film feels a like a last bout for a pair of aging actors past their prime. There were a few good laughs in there but I found myself nodding off about midway through.
Film:
SPECIAL FEATURES
- Limited edition O-card slipcase featuring original poster artwork [2000 copies]
- Limited edition booklet featuring new writing on Madhouse by genre film expert Christopher Stewardson and an archival interview with director Jim Clark conducted by John Hamilton, originally published in The Dark Side [2000 copies]
- 1080p HD presentation on Blu-ray
- Original English mono audio
- Optional English subtitles (SDH)
- New introduction to Madhouse by horror novelist Stephen Laws
- Lights, Camera, Murder! – new video essay on Madhouse by horror and gothic scholar Mary Going
- Audio commentary by film historian David Del Valle
- Archival making-of featurette
- Stills Gallery
- Original theatrical trailer
Audio commentary: I found film historian Valle’s commentary fairly dry compared to the campy tone of the movie. Despite this, it’s layered with detail about each player in the film and he comments on various slasher and giallo trademarks in the film.
Stephen Laws introduction (8mins): Speaks about the British novelist who wrote the original story the film is based on, the key actors and their careers. Then goes into how the film came about and some fun trivia. Gold sense of humour.
Mary Going video essay (26 mins): An excellent featurette. Going speaks about the history of Slasher films and it’s formula, trademarks of the genre. She gives background on Price and Cushing, explains why Karloff and Cushing in opening credits, the types of gothic horror it is satirising and paying homage to, how it draws from German krimi and Italian giallo movies, and likenesses of stalk and slash sequences to other movies.
Archival making of featurette (11 mins): Thorough documentary feature on the production behind the movie, differences from the novel Devilday, tension on the set, including an unhappy Price, all the rewrites, budget issues, how it was considered a mess by the studio and they stopped making those types of movies after a long history of doing so.
Disc/package:
Eureka releases Madhouse on Bluray on 22nd June, 2026.