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: Haunted House

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.

I have a confession. I have never seen a film by Kiyoshi Kurosawa. I have no excuse. I own a couple of them. Most are available on various streaming services. Maybe I just have a slight aversion to J-Horror. These Japanese films do not tend to grab me the way the more Western films do, for whatever reason. Hausu. Ringu. Noroi: The Curse. Audition. Battle Royale. I’ve seen all of them, and I found them to be good to pretty good. I definitely will not be accused of being hyperbolic in my praise for any of these films. So many other people whose opinion I respect seem to love these movies much more than I do. I always just feel like I’m missing something, or maybe an aspect or style of filmmaking is keeping me at arms length.

Going back to the well (Ringu joke maybe) for my haunted house pick—Kurosawa’s Sweet Home. I may as well start near the beginning with his filmography if I am going to dive in. Bottom line up front: there is a lot I like about this movie, but yet again, I did not love it like I had hoped. Mainly the film is too long. Fifteen, twenty (thirty?) minutes lees, and I would have been really praising it a bit more. But still, there is plenty here to praise, and I think I might like it more on a second viewing (and if some nice boutique label wanted to give it a restoration and release, I would definitely pick it up on day one).

Sweet Home follows a fairly familiar template as far as haunted house movies go. There is an abandoned house of course. This house belonged to an artist. Legend has it that there is a fresco on one of the walls of the house that has not been seen or recorded. Enter a television crew who wants to go into the house and document the discovery and restoration of the fresco. Unfortunately for them (but fortunately for us), the group gets more than they bargained for when they discover that the legend of the ghost of the house is true. Lady Mamiya, the matriarch of the family, haunts the home, still distraught over the loss of her baby who died in the home’s furnace. No one is safe from her hysterical insanity.

It is fairly difficult to not think about Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist while watching Sweet Home. Children in peril. The lore of outsiders disturbing the area. Early visual effects mixed with some fantastic practical ones. There is a lot to like in this film for sure. Again, it’s just too long. And the VHS rip I watched on YouTube did not do it any favors (I later discovered a better version on YouTube, so maybe watch that one if you want to check it out).

I think every review I read mentioned how a video game was based on this movie which then became the basis of Resident Evil. So I guess I need to add this blurb here too. I did love those first couple Resident Evil games, but I never thought about them while watching Sweet Home. 

I’m going to keep pushing through J-Horror though. I feel like I’m getting closer to unlocking the magic.