Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: Viewer’s Choice

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adam Hursey is a pharmacist specializing in health informatics by day, but his true passion is cinema. His current favorite films are Back to the Future, Stop Making Sense, and In the Mood for Love. He has written articles for Film East and The Physical Media Advocate, primarily examining older films through the lens of contemporary perspectives. He is usually found on Letterboxd, where he mainly writes about horror and exploitation films. You can follow him on Letterboxd or Instagram at ashursey.

We’ve come to the final page in the last chapter of Horror Gives Back. Before I close the book on another successful journey through horror films I’ve watched for the first time, I’ve saved one of the best for last—Tibor Takács’ I, Madman.

By 1989, horror had pretty much run its course at the box office. Jason may have been taking Manhattan, but he grossed less than 15 million. Freddy didn’t fare much better with The Dream Child, garnering about 22 million dollars. The top grossing horror film of 1989? Pet Sematary with 57 million, slightly less than that Al Pacino film Sea of Love. Audiences were much more interested in spending money on action and family-oriented movies than horror. Perhaps the true horror was yet to come in the next decade.

As far as I, Madman’s box office, it is non-existent. After a regional release, the film was dumped on home video, as so many films were in those days. Eventually, it has taken on a bit of a cult following it seems. With one eye looking in the past and one eye looking forward, I, Madman combines the 1950s nostalgia so many films hoped to capture and pulled it into the turn of the decade.

The film follows Virginia (Jenny Wright), an aspiring actress who works at a local bookstore. She has come across an old book entitled Much of Madness, More of Sin, written by someone named Malcolm Brand. The main character of this novel forms an obsession around an actress named Anna. She does not care for his face, so he decides to just cut off all of his features. His nose. His ears. His lips. His scalp. You know, as one does when one is rejected by a woman.

Unable to find Brand’s follow up novel, I, Madman, Virginia is dejected, but, amazingly, she finds the book at the doorstep to her apartment. In this novel, the character is back, harvesting those body parts he had removed from unsuspecting victims in order to graft them onto his own body. But suddenly, fiction becomes reality, as Virginia begins witnessing murders and is haunted by the man from the novel. Could the events have truly leapt from the page? Or is Virginia experiencing some sort of psychotic break? The fantastical ending perhaps poses more questions than answers.

I, Madman does a fantastic job of combining two worlds: the seediness of a 50s pulp novel, complete with a film noir feel, and a bit of a neo-noir, as Virginia’s boyfriend, Richard (Clayton Rohner), is a detective on the case, torn between solving the crime and believing his girlfriend. Surprisingly, he does not totally dismiss Virginia’s claims. Add a touch of Rear Window, stop motion effects that you never see anymore, and some of the best production design of any film in the late 80s, and a cult classic is born.

I find myself guilty of saying clichés like “they just don’t make films like this anymore”. Truth is, they never made films like I, Madman. It’s almost singular in its originality. Filmmakers are not allowed to take these chances anymore unfortunately. Thus, I do not find modern horror to be that interesting. Like Virginia, I find myself scouring the past for content that lights up my imagination. Luckily, I’m not sure that I will ever hit bottom, as I keep finding fantastic films year after year. 

I can probably start making my Horror Gives Back list for next year. Note to self: add The Gate to films to try to squeeze into a category. I suddenly need more Tibor Takács in my life.

Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: 1980s

Italy, you’re my favorite.

La Bestia nello Spazio earns its The Beast In Space title because it features Sirpa Lane, a star of The Beast (and Immoral Tales, the movie that it was initially part of), in a story reminiscent of Beauty and the Beast. Roger Vadim saw Lane as the next Bardot, a vision that led her to  Papaya: Love Goddess of the Cannibals. Tragically, she passed away from AIDS in 1999.

Captain Larry (Vassili Karis) may live in the future, but there are still bars and still women to pick up in bars, like Sondra (Lane). He steals her from another man, just as a vial he also took ends up containing Antalium, a very important McGuffin that can be used to make bombs. Larry gets a crew and heads off to Lorigon, which is where this element is from, to get as much of it as he can.

The man that Larry fought at the bar, Juan Cardoso (Venantino Venantini), is on his way to this planet and sends a giant robot — the one that has been in Sondra’s dreams — after them. And the planet is run by a computer, Zocor, which makes everyone have sex because this is an Italian movie.

There are light sabers, space horses having space horse sex, dudes in gold body paint, a space satyr penis and all of the costumes and effects from Alfonso Brescia’s other space films, Cosmos: War of the Planets, Battle of the Stars, War of the Planets and Star Odyssey. But this is more The Black Hole than Star Wars. I’m not just saying that because it has an XXX cut.

Brescia also went by the name Al Bradley, the name he used to make the wild Ator remix film Iron Warrior, the Richard Roundtree-starring Miami Cops, the David Hess-starring giallo Omicidio a luci blu, Killer Caliber .32, If One Is Born a Swine, Naked Girl Murdered In the Park, Super Stooges vs. the Wonder Woman, and so many more. I’m just shocked that he somehow went from Lucas rip-offs to suddenly making a porny science fiction movie. But you know Italy. Whatever sells.

I watched this with inserts, but you can watch an edited version on YouTube.

Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: 1980s

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adam Hursey is a pharmacist specializing in health informatics by day, but his true passion is cinema. His current favorite films are Back to the Future, Stop Making Sense, and In the Mood for Love. He has written articles for Film East and The Physical Media Advocate, primarily examining older films through the lens of contemporary perspectives. He is usually found on Letterboxd, where he mainly writes about horror and exploitation films. You can follow him on Letterboxd or Instagram at ashursey.

The characters of The Bible have been a fount of inspiration for horror movies since the days of silent film. Many of these films focus on the exploits of demons and the Devil, supernatural beings out to possess, corrupt, and destroy. The Seventh Sign takes a different approach, turning to the back of the Book to see how God’s judgment might be poured out onto the Earth.

If the title had not already been taken by Ingmar Bergman, perhaps The Seventh Seal might have been a more appropriate title. A mysterious man named David (Jurgen Prochnow) is globetrotting, breaking the seal on various parchments. With each break, another disaster occurs, from the fish in the ocean in Haiti dying to the discovery of a frozen desert in the Middle East. Eventually, David finds his way to Abby (Demi Moore), a pregnant woman who is due to give birth on Leap Day. Abby’s lawyer husband Russell (Michael Biehn) is busy trying to get a young man with Down’s Syndrome clemency from the gas chamber for killing his parents (who were also brother and sister), a strange B story that eventually does become more important in the final act.

David rents a room above the garage and tells the couple a story over dinner involving sparrows and their song. According to David, all souls are stored in a place called the Guf. As a soul comes to inhabit the body of a newborn baby, the sparrow sings its song. While the story sounds charming on the surface, Abby soon finds herself face-to-face with the realization that David is actually the second coming of Jesus Christ. And the Guf is all out of souls, starting with her baby. God is ready to judge the world, and only Abby can stop it.

The Seventh Sign takes an interesting approach to its storytelling by melding Jewish folklore with the New Testament. The Guf is not mentioned in the Bible, but it is mentioned in the Jewish text, the Talmud, which is sort of an interpretation by rabbis of the Torah, the oral history of the Jewish people that also incorporates the first five books of the Bible (confused yet?). If nothing else, it was a bold move by the makers of The Seventh Sign to take Jewish folklore and apply it to the apocalypse. In comparison to horror films that tap into Christianity for inspiration, there have not been too many films inspired by Jewish folklore.

Perhaps the most famous being from Jewish folklore featured in films is the Golem, a protector made from clay who comes to life to save and serve the Jewish people. Another figure in Jewish folklore is the dybbuk, a spirit who clings to its host, possessing that person, causing mental anguish. One recent film that explores a dybbuk is Demon (2015), a Polish film featured in the All the Haunts Be Ours: Volume 2 set from Severin Films. Also featuring a dybbuk was The Unborn, a film from 2009 starring Gary Oldman as a rabbi who is consulted to get rid of the spirit. Oh how I love all of the different forms of folk horror! I learn so much about different cultures from these stories, even if I do not care for the film itself sometimes.

But fortunately, I really enjoyed The Seventh Sign, more than others it seems (currently only a 2.7 star rating on Letterboxd). It is a film that I never got around to watching for whatever reason (perhaps due to the lack of champions for the film). But I found it to be very thought-provoking. Demi Moore in the lead role helps for sure. And although the film seems too scared to go for an unhinged ending it could have, there is some comfort in thinking that the prayers and actions of one woman could change God’s mind, a consistent thread throughout the Bible.

I watched this one as God intended—on a VHS cassette tape I bought from Goodwill years ago but before now never cracked the seal so to speak.