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We got a ton of awesome slasher movies in the 1980s, and one that isn’t nearly as popular as it should be is the 1981 film Madman (get it Here) – so it’s cool to hear that Vinegar Syndrome and author Matt Serafini are celebrating this undersung classic with the publication of a novelization! The limited edition hardcover release is going for the price of $49.99 and can be purchased at This Link.

Written and directed by Joe Giannone, Madman has the following synopsis: Betsy’s final summer as a camp counselor at North Sea Cottages was supposed to be one long farewell to the only life she’d ever known. But her world takes an ominous turn when a campfire story unwittingly unleashes a crazed killer. While Betsy contends with a complicated love life and the pressures of an uncertain future, the chilling legend of Madman Marz- a psychotic farmer...

Stars: Gaylen Ross, Tony Fish, Harriet Bass, Seth Jones, Jan Claire, Alexander Murphy Jr., Tom Candela, Frederick Neumann, Michael Sullivan, Paul Ehlers, Tom Veilleux, Stephen Clark, Vicki Kenneally, Shelley Mathes, Lori Mathes | Written and Directed by Joe Giannone

Urban Legends and camp-fires are the perfect way to start a horror film. Point to an old abandoned house and say that a crazy old man still lives there, you must not shout his name or he’ll come and get you. Perfect start to a slasher right? This is the basic plot for Madman, an early 80s genre flick which has had the Arrow Video Blu-ray treatment.

When a group of camp counsellors are telling scary stories around a campfire, they are warned not to say the name of Madman Marz, a crazy old farmer who is still said to haunt the woods around his abandoned home, conveniently close to the camp.

1981 was a banner year for slasher cinema.

Michael Myers got into the franchise game with Halloween II. It turns out Jason Voorhees wasn’t dead at the bottom of Crystal Lake and he picked up right where his mom left off in Friday the 13th Part 2. And beloved one-off slasher classics such as My Bloody Valentine, The Prowler, and The Burning all took their turns staining the silver screen red in ‘81.

One other slasher film from that year has managed to make a modest name for itself in the intervening years – Joe Giannone’s Madman. This other, other camp-set slasher of ‘81 actually shares some fun history with The Burning. Believe it or not, Madman was conceived as a Cropsey film and the production had to tweak itself when they caught wind that another Cropsey-based horror film had just beaten them to the production punch.

So while The Burning got to keep Cropsey,...

April’s horror and sci-fi home media releases are ending in a big way, as we have a lot of genre goodness to look forward to with this week’s 4K, Blu-ray, and DVD offerings. In terms of new titles, Roland Emmerich’s Moonfall is arriving this Tuesday on a variety of formats, and both Gia Elliott’s psychological thriller Take Back the Night and Dead by Midnight Y2Kill are headed to DVD as well.

Arrow Video is giving Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys the 4K treatment this week, and Vinegar Syndrome has several titles headed to 4K this week, too, including Scanner Cop, Scanner Cop II: The Showdown, Madman, and a Schizoid/X-Ray double feature. Severin Films is showing some love to the Ozploitation flick Stone with a Special Edition release, and Agfa/Bleeding Skull are putting out Emily Hagins’ Pathogen on Blu-ray, too.

Other titles headed home on...

Of all the many sub-genres in horror, the slasher is probably my favorite. There aren’t many good ones, but even the bad ones tend to deliver exactly what we want from the formula. They’re horror movie comfort food, and Shudder is offering an entire buffet this October.

Black Christmas (1973, dir. Bob Clark) In many ways the first modern slasher film, Bob Clark’s holiday horror movie is, to this day, a genre masterpiece. From its chilly Canadian atmosphere to the disturbing obscene phone calls being made to a sorority house, Black Christmas is brilliantly constructed and hugely influential. It’s not just one of my favorite slasher movies, but one of my favorite horror movies of any type, full stop.

Blood Rage (1987, dir. Bruce Rubin) There are slasher movies that are tense and scary and stylish. Blood Rage is not one of them. Shot in 1983 but not released...

Stars: Gaylen Ross, Tony Fish, Harriet Bass, Seth Jones, Jan Claire, Alexander Murphy Jr., Tom Candela, Frederick Neumann, Michael Sullivan, Paul Ehlers, Tom Veilleux, Stephen Clark, Vicki Kenneally, Shelley Mathes, Lori Mathes | Written and Directed by Joe Giannone

Urban Legends and camp-fires are the perfect way to start a horror film. Point to an old abandoned house and say that a crazy old man still lives there, you must not shout his name or he’ll come and get you. Perfect start to a slasher right? This is the basic plot for Madman, an early 80s genre flick which has had the Arrow Video Blu-ray treatment.

When a group of camp counsellors are telling scary stories around a campfire, they are warned not to say the name of Madman Marz, a crazy old farmer who is still said to haunt the woods around his abandoned home, conveniently close to the camp.

By Todd Garbarini

When I was a teenager, the Boy Scout troop that I was a member of consisted of nearly 25 scouts. We had a few older scouts whom the rest of the younger scouts looked up to, and during our weekend camping trips the seniors made every effort to scare the beejezus out of us youngsters with ludicrous tales of ghosts or killers hiding out in the woods. These stories were often woven around a campfire in the late hours of the evening when we were all seemingly vulnerable. During the summer of 1980, Sean Cunningham’s Friday the 13th was doing well at the box office, so I was already aware of these “murderers in the woods”-themed films. This didn’t make it any easier for us to go on camping trips! The success of Friday the 13th gave birth to countless carbon copies of young adults-being-stalked-in-the-woods films.

Stars: Gaylen Ross, Tony Fish, Harriet Bass, Seth Jones, Jan Claire, Alexander Murphy Jr., Tom Candela, Frederick Neumann, Michael Sullivan, Paul Ehlers, Tom Veilleux, Stephen Clark, Vicki Kenneally, Shelley Mathes, Lori Mathes | Written and Directed by Joe Giannone

Regular readers will know that I am not a big fan of the slasher genre. A lot of the times, I am just bored to tears. I would much rather watch a giallo when it’s at its most convoluted, than a ‘classic’ slasher. That being said, I’m a fair guy. I believe every film should be watched at least once before you offer your opinion. Thankfully, the lovely folks over at Vinegar Syndrome have been sending over many films that I have never heard of and films that I wouldn’t usually check out. Last year they released the slasher classic, Graduation Day. I was pleasantly surprised by the film...

Madman

Blu-ray + DVD Combo

Label: Vinegar Syndrome

Pre-book: 04/14/2015 Streets: 05/12/2015 Srp: 24.98 Upc: 855011004826

Cat: Vs-078 Run Time: 88 Minutes Original Language: English

Color Widescreen 1.85:1 DTS-hd Ma 2.0 Mono Region 0

Horror MPAA Rating: R Production Year: 1981

Director: Joe Giannone

Cast: Gaylen Ross, Tony Fish, Paul Ehlers

Years ago, Madman Marz violently murdered his family only to escape into the woods … Continue reading →

Horrornews.net...

We're sticking with the summer camp theme for the latest installment in our ongoing slasher series; last week we visited the 1981 cult fave The Burning (which is about to receive glorious Blu-ray treatment; check out the details here), and today we're headed back to the forest to face another mangled maniac – this time the undead redneck behemoth known as “Madman Marz” – the title nemesis of Madman, released one year after The Burning at the peak of the slasher cycle. Conceived by producer Gary Sales and director Joe Giannone, Madman is actually loosely based on the same urban myth that inspired The Burning: the story of “Cropsey,” an inhuman killer who – as many a campfire tale would have it – stalks New York's Staten Island, seeking symbolic revenge for his own death and/or disfigurement. The films share much of Cropsey's DNA, all the way down to a lively retelling of...

After a couple of light on horror weeks, we are finally treated to a bumper crop of new releases. Headlining the week is Frozen, which is just what we in Southern California need to stave off our current heat wave. A couple of oldies but goodies are out, too, as Madman celebrates its Happy 30th Birthday and the original King Kong comes to Blu-ray. Fangoria's eight FrightFest titles bow as well.

Frozen

Directed by Adam Green

In Frozen (review), Adam Green has crafted a potent combination of absolute terror and compelling human drama that will stick with you long after you've left the theatre or turned off the DVD. One thing's for sure: The next time your friends invite you on a ski weekend, odds are you'll try to convince them to head to the beach instead. Frozen stars Shawn Ashmore, Emma Bell and Kevin Zegers.

Buy the Blu-ray or the regular DVD.

It’s no secret that the early 80s saw many fledgling filmmakers scrambling to become the next John Carpenter by capitalizing on the infamous slasher boom, and Madman’s genesis was certainly no different. And while it was one of four ‘campfire slashers’ made in 1981 (Friday the 13th, part 2, The Burning and The Final Terror being the others), it is perhaps the most distinct. From the invocative and unconventional opening credits (scrolling against an eerie, illustrated backdrop) to the expository campfire story told entirely in song (!), there’s enough happening throughout this visit to the ill-fated North Sea Cottages to recognize it as a standout amongst an overcrowded subgenre.

Our campers spin an uncomfortable yarn about a violent farmer called Marz, who butchered his entire family in a gruesome murder before being seized by an angry lynch mob. Disappearing from the makeshift gallows, Marz took to the nearby woods and became the stuff of legend.

Madman Marz fans be on the look out because production company Code Red DVD is in the early stages of prepping a new special edition of the early 80's "slasher" cult classic Madman. Anchor Bay Entertainment initially put out the DVD back in 2001 but has been out of print and hard to find, that is about to change...

While the new features for this edition are still being worked out, we do know that the original commentary track with writer/director Joe Giannone, writer/producer Gary Sales and stars Tony Fish and Paul "Madman Marz" Ehlers will be carted over from the Anchor Bay release. (Sadly, Giannone and Fish are no longer with us.)

Early word has it the disc will sport new interviews with some of the cast, as well as a featurette visiting the original shooting locations with Madman Marz himself, Paul Ehlers.

Madman pre-dated the original Friday The 13th...

We've learned that Code Red DVD is in the early stages of prepping a new special edition of the early 80's "slasher" cult classic Madman . Anchor Bay Entertainment initially put out the DVD back in 2001 which has long since been out of print. While the new features for this edition are still being worked out, we do know that the original commentary track with writer/director Joe Giannone, writer/producer Gary Sales and stars Tony Fish and Paul "Madman Marz" Ehlers will be carted over from the Anchor Bay release. (Sadly, Giannone and Fish are no longer with us.) Early word has it the disc will sport new interviews with some of the cast, as well as a featurette visiting the original shooting locations with Madman Marz himself, Paul Ehlers. Madman...