Madhouse (1974)

Paul Toombes (Vincent Price) has built a nice career in Hollywood for himself by starring in a series of horror films in which he plays one Doctor Death, as written by his close friend, the former actor Herbert Flay (Peter Cushing). When Paul’s fiancée is murdered by someone wearing his Doctor Death costume, most of the world, including himself, is pretty sure he is indeed the man responsible.

After years spent institutionalized, and some time of private seclusion, Flay has convinced Toombes to return to acting and the role of Doctor Death in a British TV show produced by the despicable (so, very much a classic producer type) Oliver Quayle (Robert Quarry, squeezing much slime out of a not terribly deeply written part). Paul is really doing this in the name of friendship for Flay. For his friend seems to have hit on hard times financially and, as we will learn after a while, privately with a rather arachnid situation concerning his wife Faye (Adrienne Corri).

Things do go wrong very quickly, for someone dressed as Doctor Death begins to kill off various people Paul meets (sorry, Linda Hayden!), while our protagonist’s public behaviour becomes increasingly erratic. Which is what happens to a guy who isn’t too sure if he is actually committing a series brutal murders.

This AIP and Amicus co-production directed by Jim Clark does have a pretty bad reputation, so I found myself positively surprised by the film when I finally got around to watching it, after literal decades. Sure, it’s not at all on the level of comparable Price vehicles like the lovely Doctor Phibes films or Theatre of Blood, but more often than not, this is a rather delightful bit of meta horror. It is perhaps not as deep as one would like, and sometimes a bit ploddingly paced, but otherwise, I find very little to dislike here.

Price is certainly putting – as was his wont – a lot of energy into his part, portraying Toombes as a bit of an unluckier version of himself, providing nervy energy, big emotions, and a truly frightening shouty mouth, while also keeping the guy sympathetic and likeable.

One might have wished for a bit more of Cushing on screen, but what’s there is as perfectly delivered as always. Plus, there’s a pretty incredible moment I won’t spoil even when talking about a movie nearly fifty years old that’s all Cushing’s right at the end of the movie, a moment silly, darkly funny, perfectly macabre and oh so well delivered. And really, as a fan of both Cushing and Price, it is a great joy to see both of them interact at all.

There are a handful of truly great moments like that very last scene sprinkled through the whole of the film, usually mixing that dark humour, a grotesque or macabre idea, and a tinge of melancholy with perfectly appropriate overacting by Price or Corri.

If I wanted to criticize anything, it’s that Clark (who is much better known as an editor) is rather too workmanlike a director for the material at hand. Certainly, someone with a bit more verve and style behind the camera could have made even more out of the sense of melancholia for things lost that has turned grotesque for quite a few characters, and could probably have given the murder set pieces a bit more weight and dynamics. However, that’s what stands between Madhouse being a great entry into the Price canon instead of merely being a good and interesting one, and so feels like a bit of a non-complaint.

Spirits (1990)

Parapsychologist Dr. Richard Wicks (an understandably embarrassed looking Robert Quarry) assembles a crack team of supposed experts to examine a haunted house before it has its meeting with the wrecking ball. Wicks’s team consists of professional sceptic Beth (Kathrin Lautner), “guy from the historical society” Harry (Oliver Darrow) and psychic Amy Goldwyn (Brinke Stevens).

Turns out the house is indeed haunted, and there’s a supernatural reason for the two consecutive murder sprees that happened in it, so our experts soon are confronted with a sexy succubus (Kaitlin Hopkins), possession, and other hilarious events.

So as to not overwhelm us with all this excitement, the film pops on over to the church of Father Anthony Vicci (Erik Estrada acting like a real trooper and pretending he’s in a real movie and acting as earnestly as his abilities allow) from time to time. Father Anthony still hasn’t gotten over that time when he lapsed and had sex one time ten years ago. In fact, his feelings of guilt have grown in the last few weeks or so, and he now has dreams about a sexy nun (Carol Lynley) seducing him and turning into a demon and other bouts of supernatural evil. There’s a reason (well, sort of) for that too, for the woman the good Father had his one time sexual encounter with was living in the house from our other plot line, and involved in the last murder spree. Will the dear Father Jesus up and save our heroes when they can’t help themselves anymore?

So, why exactly did I watch a Fred Olen Ray movie, seeing as I should by now know that all it’ll have to offer me is pain, suffering, and the destruction of another billion brain cells? Can’t have been the promise of softcore dry humping scenes in my horror, for while Ray’s sleaze is generally sleazy, his sex scenes always suggest to me he might have met sexy once but didn’t recognize it, and all he’s now left with is reproducing the shittiest softcore smut sex scenes he’s seen in other films. In that sense, Spirits is quite the success, for the sex scenes here are quite off-putting even before the poor actresses get into their demon make-up, and they are shot with a lack of verve and creativity that makes Playboy’s softcore movie output look like art.

The film’s horror part doesn’t fare much better, mostly because Ray’s direction lacks everything you need to make a haunted house movie: atmosphere, the ability to not have the shadow of the microphone absurdly close to the centre of at least half of the shots, a haunted house that looks and feels even the slightest bit spooky, dialogue that isn’t so clunky it doesn’t hurt ears and brain of a viewer and can’t help but make a bunch of bad actors even worse, a plot that doesn’t drag and drag and drag on. Then there’s the problem that Ray in general is as bland and boring a director as they come.

Sure, in its final third or so, the film does get mildly better – or rather funnier – because we get crappy versions of the usual demon shenanigans, are allowed to witness Erik Estrada exorcise a walking corpse, get a good look at the possessed (because the sceptic told her to let the ghosts in) medium nailing herself to a chair for no good reason, while the dialogue upgrades from boring-bad to kinda-funny-bad. However, ten minutes of fun aren’t really worth the pain that is the rest of the film.