I, Madman

A great many titles released in the early years of Blu-ray are now finding their way to the vaults of Kino Lorber … this former Shout! Factory item has been reissued by the Kino label ‘Kino Cult’ and looks better than ever. Our re-viewing came with an appreciation of its more cerebral approach, one that pays homage to a heritage of horror pulps.

A vein of horror seldom tapped by the movies is to be found in vintage pulp magazines, the bone-chilling ‘dread’ stories that make one feel insecure and off-balance. This 1989 release from Trans World Entertainment brings back memories of creepy illustrations in old horror anthologies. The classic example is this: in a dusty corner of a forgotten library, a sleepy old researcher is dozing over an ancient, opened book. From out of an illustration in the book reaches a skeletal hand. It’s about to turn off the desk lamp … what horrible thing will happen?  The perfectly irrational nightmare image was frequently referenced by Charles Addams and Gahan Wilson. Some of the film’s promotional artwork uses a similar ‘interactive’ haunted book gag concept.

When a horror picture comes along with a fresh idea or two, it’s easy to find favor. A modest shocker with ambitions, I, Madman is directed with verve and for the most part nicely acted. David Chaskin’s story blurs the boundary between what’s real and unreal, without boring us with the usual question ‘is it fantasy or reality?’  The Macabre is fully in charge.

Curled up on her couch, bookstore clerk Virginia (Jenny Wright) can’t tear herself away from the horrors within a dog-eared copy of one of the spiritualist Malcolm Brand’s creepy old novels. The trouble is that every time she reads a new chapter, something related happens in real life. Malcolm Brand’s personal book collection has come into the store as an estate consignment. She then thinks she’s seen him in a bookstore mirror, just for a second. Is he a figment of her imagination?

An old publisher tells Virginia that the author mutilated himself in a demented attempt to get the attention of a woman he loved. Then Brand appears in the flesh, a gravel-voiced maniac with a horrible face (Randall William Cook). He’s re-enacting his book’s grisly murders — and victimizing Virginia’s friends and acquaintances.

Along with Brand’s books came an unopened steamer trunk, now locked away in the bookstore’s attic. Why is it perforated with breathing holes?  Sure enough, it contains something that can’t be allowed to escape.

The story slips back and forth between the present (1989) and events thirty years earlier. The story twists are just good enough to surprise us, even with the borrowing of ideas from  Phantom of the Opera and other Gothics about fiends that hide horrible faces behind mysterious masks. Virginia relates her problem to a sympathetic police captain, who politely pays her no heed whatsoever. The obligatory cop boyfriend gets involved, and for once the police procedurals don’t distract from the macabre mood.

Dreams have Substance. 

I, Madman is very much like the children’s classic  The NeverEnding Story, in which a fantasy tale becomes interactive. The film evokes the thrill of a vivid reading experience, the creepy kind in which one feels a book is ‘coming to life.’  Does Malcomb Brand ‘come to life’ because the act of reading his story summons him from an alternate dimension?  Virginia opens herself up to a trespass of fiction into reality, and it’s no fairy tale. When her friends are killed, she can’t wish them back to life, like Tinker Bell.

I, Madman was made by a skilled independent outfit in the last years before genre chillers were routinely consigned to the purgatory of straight-to-video. Although its resources are modest the picture is handsomely designed. Expressive lighting brings new life to visuals familiar from Alfred Hitchcock movies, and perhaps some Argento films. We like the relaxed opening shot, which pans across a block of old apartments as Art and Dotty Todd’s cover of “Chanson d’Amour” purrs on the soundtrack. Director Takács manages some cute stylistic tricks, like changing from 1989 to 1959 in one shot without a cut.

The standout horror makeup and visual effects scenes are all the work of Randall William Cook. Years before his triple Oscar-winning run in New Zealand with the  Lord of the Rings movies, Cook directed a lot of visual effects, specializing in stop-motion animation. Cook’s previous movie  The Gate showcased sensational pre-CGI illusions, including ambitious forced-perspective setups.

Cook also plays the old-school villain Malcolm Brand, creeping through scenes in a cape and broad-brimmed hat, like ‘The Shadow.’  1989 audiences likely related Malcolm to Wes Craven’s phantom  ‘Freddy’ character, as his appearances frequently defy logic. The startling makeup work gives Brand a horror-face stitched from pieces razor-slashed from his victims. It has a grisly tactile quality, like something from an EC comic. Cook’s piercing eyes and maniacal voice add to the effect. The face keeps changing. Whenever Brand nears the camera lens, we see ‘new improvements.’

Bursting onto the scene at chosen moments is that grotesque ‘thing’ in Brand’s steamer trunk. It is stop-motion animated, also by Randall William Cook. I, Madman may be the only horror feature where a single talent animated a character in addition to playing a Lon Chaney-type monster role under heavy makeup. A frantic, sharply designed fight scene puts the two ‘monsters’ in the same frame. Cook mixes live action with replacement miniatures and full-sized mockups — it’s more than just clever.

Jenny Wright (of Twister) is engaging as the haunted bookworm Virginia, and a major asset to the film’s success. The production is sometimes unsteady, but the good concept sustains many successful scenes. The effects sequences all rate a solid ‘A.’  Unlike the average slasher epic, I, Madman keeps us guessing all the way through its violent third act. The gory killings may be predictable, but not the plot mechanics. Each jeopardy situation is different.

I remember seeing the film’s trailer before another movie at Grauman’s Chinese on Hollywood Boulevard. This is the kind of film that Charles Band tried and failed to make many times. The ambitious I, Madman is a pleasing independent horror offering.