Madman (1981)
All Hallows’ Eve. It’s midnight. North Sea cottages is our third and final woodland destination as we unwisely summon Madman Marz—a hirsute, backwoods local yokel, and Bigfoot-kinda-looking bloke, for a chilly, generic slasher to warm the cockles of your heart. We are quite literally at the whim of a madman for 1981’s… Madman.
We open on a familiar campfire setting with a geezer that simultaneously resembles Jimmy Fallon, Count Karnstein from the Hammer trilogy, and the lead singer from The War on Drugs, crooning a folky ode to the Madman, “Song of the Fifth Wind” in the style of Longlegs doing “Stairway to Heaven,” and relating the tale of Marz… Madman Marz—an alcoholic farmer, who was a real nasty piece of work by all accounts. According to the legend, this guy went loco down in Acapulco one night and bludgeoned his wife and children, then went to the pub, slammed his bloody axe on the bar, and drank himself a beer. Later, ten men jumped Marz, and strung him up—hanging him from a tree. They axed him in the skull, and left him dangling from a noose, but the following day the body had vanished, as had the corpses of his whole family, and they were never found, or seen again.
The object of cocky senior camp counselor, T.P. (Tony Fish) aka Jimmy Fallon’s ceaseless affections is none other than the lead actress from George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, Gaylen Ross as Betsy—credited here as Alexis Dubin, presumably to spare any acting résumé blushes. There’s also a dude with a tash that looks like that one off of Hall & Oates because… 1981. He looks like he just stepped off the cover of Private Eyes.
Speaking of a special retreat for gifted children, the youngest kids I teach in Korea are five years old. I currently have two kindergarten classes, and if you asked them to be a monster they would be the Madman—that’s how glaringly broad this portrayal of an abominable, mountain man barbarian is. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan. I’ve got all his records. He’s a brute; beastlike and savage, he growls unforgettably, he’s got long fingernails with a Count Orlok arch to his clawed, feral hands. Nevertheless, it’s a real performance and a truly underrated slasher villain portrayal. There’s a kinda scratchy cackle that appears on the soundtrack whenever the titular Madman is near, and when we do bear witness—be he up a tree in silhouette, flashing up momentarily in a torch’s glare in the woods, or partially veiled by a car bonnet, the soundtrack blares the same three, easily mimicable notes. How many movie monsters have their own theme tune? The Madman does—simply titled, the “Song of Madman Mars.”
The Madman is surprisingly spritely. He’s a tad theatrical and has boundless energy, which he uses to hasten purposefully across the screen, and if there’s one thing the Madman enjoys as much as doing murders, it’s dragging dead folks back to his dusty ol’ farmhouse. He’ll gladly push you into a piano, and scratch your face right down to the bone. He’ll haul you through an old house by your hair and impale you on a spike, Leatherface—or Mutilator-style. Remember when Ultimate Warrior would lift other wrestlers above his head and do several straight-armed reps with ’em before administering a gorilla press slam? Hulk Hogan would do the gesture, but he could never stretch his 24-inch pythons up all the way. Well, the Madman can do that. In fact, not only can he lift you up right above his head, he can also break all your bones at the same time.
He’s equally at home in a dusty cellar, putting out candles with his hands as he is climbing an enormous tree like a gibbon. He likes to chop you up, or hang you from a tree—that’s his killing style. Psychologically, the gotcha moments are unpredictable because the Madman can plant his axe firmly in your cranium out of nowhere, or unexpectedly noose you from above, hike you up high from a nearby branch, and dangle you by the neck until ye be dead. The Madman, bless him, also can’t speak English—he growls, grunts, and makes odd, animalistic mutterings and indecipherable bestial utterances. He gallops around the gaff giddily—clearly completely out of his mind, but with a purpose. The Madman also admirably accomplishes all of his goals without any shoes on, which I thought was remarkable and deserved some brownie points. Also, quite contrarily, the Madman will watch you do the hunka chunka in a hot tub—he’s not averse to that. The Madman is a heavy breather, and we often see from his point of view. He’s omnipotent. The screenplay even states outright, “He can be anywhere at any time, and if he hears you call his name, he’ll come for you, and if he comes for you, he’ll get you.”
Again, the inept, clumsy transitions between shots are sometimes dissolves, which get my back up no end, but the plethora of pet peeves are continuous throughout all three of my picks, so it’s actually quite befitting for this curated trilogía. Not that it would ever be humanly possible, but never hide in a fridge under any circumstances. The Madman can hear you chucking objects out, and can likely see all the groceries on the kitchen floor. Horrible decision. The filmmakers have really thought this through, and Madman’s keen misdirection is crucial as we’re never really sure when this rustic ogre will strike. When he inevitably does, it’s always a jolt, it’s always amusing, and I adore the lavish sound effects. There is an enigmatic, and palpably eerie—almost serene presence to the lurking dread of Madman, and it’s more playful than Weinstein’s ’81 Cropsy-a-like, The Burning. You know when Hitchcock used to bang on about his pictures being less like a slice of life, and more like a slice of cake? Madman is a slice of cake. Cryptically, the Madman isn’t killed on screen—he’s down in the basement of his house as it burns, with all his victims just hangin’ around. So beware. Don’t utter his name above a whisper, or perhaps do—he just might lumber back for an overdue sequel. Until then, I urge you to enter the cult of the Madman.
