The Madness of King Vincent

Vincent Price as Dr. Death

The film business loves to make movies about making movies, and the horror genre is no exception. The legendary, career-destroying classic PEEPING TOM (1960), a tale of a cameraman who moonlights as a serial killer, might be the finest example.

The horror genre also loves its icons, and in 1968 gave us Peter Bogdanovich’s excellent TARGETS, which stars Boris Karloff as a faded horror-movie actor forced to confront real-life horror in the form of a rifle-toting mass murderer (Tim O’Kelly).

Things became truly meta in 1974 upon the release of the American International Pictures-Amicus co-production MADHOUSE, a horror movie about horror movies starring horror stars playing other horror stars that uses clips from real horror films as fictional horror films within the MADHOUSE universe.

Are you still with me?

MADHOUSE stars Vincent Price as Paul Toombes, an actor famous for his recurring portrayal of one “Dr. Death.” The film begins at a New Year’s Eve party in Toombes’ home (the guests are watching a Dr. Death movie, which is actually AIP’s THE HAUNTED PALACE—convenient having AIP has a co-producer when you need clips from Vincent Price movies). Peter Cushing plays Paul’s best friend and business partner Herbert, and Robert Quarry (COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE) is Quayle, a greasy pornographer who lets slip that Paul’s lovely young fiancée Ellen (Julie Crosthwaite) used to be a porn actress.

Paul storms away in a rage upon learning the news, and, when Ellen turns up ten inches shorter, via decapitation, he is the natural suspect.

Peter Cushing and Vincent Price

Several years later, Paul is released from a mental institution (not guilty by reason of insanity, one presumes). By now Quayle has gone legit as a TV producer and lures Paul back into the entertainment biz by offering him the chance to revive Dr. Death as a television series.

Things go awry when, once again, bodies start piling up, and Paul Toombes is eyed by police as the likely culprit.

MADHOUSE is at its best when dealing in delicious ironies, the primary one being the depiction of Vincent Price and Peter Cushing as washed up and forgotten when, at that point in their careers, they were veritable household names and likely had to turn down piles of scripts simply for lack of free time to act in the ensuing productions.

A meta moment in MADHOUSE: Robert Quarry as “Quayle” dressed up as Count Yorga (a Robert Quarry character) for a costume party.

There’s also sharp commentary about the pecking order of “unsavory” entertainment like horror films and pornography. When Paul finds out his young bride-to-be did adult films at the outset of her career, he adopts a haughty attitude, in his rage forgetting all the critics and concerned parents who considered his films equally filthy.

A related element is that the murders echo scenes from Dr. Death films, leading to debate, within the story, whether fictional violence begets real violence. Unfortunately, this idea is underdeveloped at the expense of a weird and out-of-place subplot that I’ll discuss below, but suffice to say, the film seems to hold the view that, no, horror films do not cause real-life violence. It would be odd for an Amicus movie to opine otherwise, one supposes.

Of course, Vincent Price brings his usual mix of over-the-top monologue and biting wit, and his verbal takedowns of secondary characters—including a talentless co-star foisted upon him by Quayle—are acerbic.

Amicus corrected a major mistake from their earlier “star-laden” feature, 1970’s SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN, which featured Price, Cushing, and Christopher Lee but forgot to give them any scenes together, save for one that never showed any of them in the same shot. MADHOUSE pairs Price with both Cushing and Quarry in multiple scenes. Cushing’s character is a meek fellow, which limits the firework to an extent, but Price’s Toombes and Quarry’s Quayle despise each other, and the resulting back-and-forth of biting commentary and smarmy condescension is fun to watch.

Ultimately, though, MADHOUSE falls well short of being a classic. It fails to mine its themes for substance and does not fully exploit the horror-movie-about-horror-movies potential. Of greater concern, instead of focusing on the murders and the investigation (I yearned for the humorous police constables from THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES), the film veers into a bizarre subplot about a disfigured woman (Adrienne Corri) who lives in Peter Cushing’s basement and collects spiders. These scenes appear to have been shot by a different director, with incongruous cinematography that resembles a weak attempt to emulate Mario Bava, and an exaggerated, theatrical acting style that does not match the rest of the film. Maybe it was an attempt to bring a Gothic element from the AIP side, but no matter, it’s a damaging choice.

Another, smaller subplot involves two supposedly comic characters trying to blackmail Toombes over a missing pocket watch, which plays out nonsensically.

The two main flaws of the film are what feels like an unfinished script with too many loose ends that go nowhere or are tonally wrong, and pedestrian direction that struggles to generate much suspense. Aside from Price, Quarry, and a too-brief appearance by the underrated Linda Hayden, MADHOUSE has difficulty sustaining its energy level.

Vincent Price and Linda Hayden in MADHOUSE

Although a minor entry in the Vincent Price oeuvre, and one with significant flaws, it’s still a Vincent Price film. You can’t go wrong when one of the greatest of all horror legends takes top billing and is supported by another legend in Peter Cushing as well as the charismatic and under-appreciated Robert Quarry. If you haven’t seen it, track it down, and tell ‘em Dr. Death sent you.

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Why have I decided to analyze a semi-obscure Vincent Price film from 1974 in seemingly random fashion? Because the Vincent Price Blogathon is on!

Barry from Cinematic Catharsis and Gill from Real WeegieMidget Reviews have teamed up to host a blogathon honoring the horror legend, bringing film writers together from all over cyberland for two days of Vincent Mania. Check out their sites for more Price-themed content.

[I’ll resist the urge to make a “Price is Right” pun in anticipation that many others already have, and also because I don’t want to sound like an old guy]

In the same spirit of sharing, here are some screen caps I took from MADHOUSE while preparing this post. You’re welcome to reuse them as it pleases you, no credit needed. They’re free. Say, maybe the price is right!