Madhouse (1974)

        One of the films from the tail end of the golden age of British horror (arguably the Golden Age of Horror full stop) is finally getting a UK Blu-ray release courtesy of Eureka. MADHOUSE stars Vincent Price, Peter Cushing and Robert Quarry and is getting a 1080p HD presentation with the original UK mono audio and a bunch of extras.

But is the film any good? Well it’s early 1970s, British, with Price and Cushing so if you’re a fan of the era then it’s a must-see. Add Linda Hayden, Natasha Pyne and Adrienne Corri to the mix and, again, if you love this era of film-making then you have to have this one in your collection. However, if you’re a little more discerning in your horror movie tastes…

Vincent Price made MADHOUSE just after appearing in THEATRE OF BLOOD, arguably the pinnacle of his career, and it cannot help but suffer by comparison. The premise is a lot of fun - at a bitchy Hollywood party horror star Paul Toombes (Price) finds his bride to be Julie Crosthwait with her head cut off. The killer is never found. Paul undergoes rehab, and then when he returns, to television rather than film, he finds that people around him are being bumped off in a variety of grisly ways. But who’s responsible?

All of that sounds marvellous, doesn’t it? The main reason MADHOUSE isn’t as lauded as THEATRE OF BLOOD or THE ABOMINABLE DR PHIBES is that this entire premise gets a bit squandered with a script (rewritten several times) that doesn’t really know how to do this sort of thing in a style writers like Brian Clemens had perfected. Amicus made this as a co-production with AIP which allows use of the AIP back catalogues (ie the Corman Poe films) for clips of Toombes’ career which we get to see on the Michael Parkinson show. If you can isolate MADHOUSE from those other classics the chances are you’ll have a better time with it. At least it’s a lot better than Angus Hall’s source novel.

Eureka’s Blu-ray comes with a nice nine minute introduction to the film from Stephen Laws who amongst other things gives you some (highly recommended) post-film reading to look up. There's an academic video essay from Mary Going that looks at how MADHOUSE fits in to the traditions of the gothic and the slasher film (26 minutes), and a commentary track from David Del Valle that's up to his usual standard. There’s also a decent eleven minute archival making of featurette from 2015 that concisely tells you a lot about the making of the film. Eureka’s limited edition (2000 copies) also comes with an O card slipcase, a new essay on AIP, and an archival interview with director Jim Clark by John Hamilton which was originally published in The Dark Side and which is well worth a read. 

MADHOUSE is getting a limited edition Blu-ray release from Eureka on Monday 22nd June 2026