Madhouse

The psychiatric intern Clark Stevens (Joshua Leonanrd) comes to Cunningham Hall, a mental healthy facility administrated by Dr. Franks (Lance Henriksen), for a training period before his graduation in medical college. He gets close to the resident Sara (Jordan Ladd) and to Ben London, a dangerous patient lodged in cell 44 in the basement of the clinic. Clark becomes intrigued with a boy, who seems to be a ghost, and finds that Dr. Franks does not use real medication in the patients. A further investigation shows hidden dark secrets in the clinic.

"Madhouse" is an unknown low-budget movie with a surprisingly great gory story. The direction is sharp, the screenplay is very well tied up and in the end it is a worthwhile horror movie, highly recommended to be discovered by fans of this genre. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Casa dos Horrores" ("The House of the Horrors")

The horror/thriller is about a rookie intern who checks into a mental health facility and discovers its darkest secrets as well as his own ones. Excellent sound effects, above average photography and smart script filled with plenty of shock moments make this film real fun to watch for fans of this genre. Joshua Leonard, a veteran in such films, acts quite well as the lead character.

But there are loopholes in the plot. One can clearly see them after a single viewing. The ending is catchy, but utterly unnecessary. Jordan Ladd hardly looks like any medical personnel. But most of all, the actions of the patients are very much exaggerated and overtly dramatic. Apart from these points, 'Madhouse' is worth renting, because the 'thrill' element is in right proportions in the film.

Clark (Joshua Leonard) is a young and idealistic new intern at a run-down and out-dated mental health facility. His aspirations for cleaning the place hit a snag when he butts heads with Dr. Franks (Lance Henrikson) who seems to not mind that the patients never seem to get any better. Shortly Clark begins seeing things and death and mayhem invade the reality of the "Madhouse". Together Clark and Sara must uncover who or what it is that stalks the asylum and survive the massacre.

"Madhouse" is a slick-looking production. Nicely filmed and directed it adds some nice visual pizazz to a relatively standard script. The three leads are all veterans of horror films and do very well in their parts. Excellent sound design and above-average photography make "Madhouse" a solid horror-thriller.

I went and saw Madhouse last night and I wasn't expecting half of what I actually saw.

Madhouse is a good scare. It is a movie filled with horrific images that kept me entertained all the way thru. There are a lot of cool death scenes. The crazies were really creepy. But the major minus is the fact that you hardly ever really get to see them as much as you'd like to. Only in very short shots and they never really play a big part in the movie! Joshua leonard acted really well.

Not at all what I expected, but that's a good thing. I was expecting a lot of senseless blood and screams. While it had its fair share of gore, I was glad it did focus more on the plot.

Overall, this is a good horror flick. I give it a 7/10

i have seen it. i always like movie theme like horror cum mental institution. e.g. session 9, house of haunted hill remake springs to my mind. lance henrikssen has only a small role here. anyway, in madhouse, i found it creepy, disturbing and scary throughout the movie especially the first time we see the "basement lock up patients" scenes. the sound design/effect is very very vigorous. this is another movie which got a 'clever' ending, it's not a 'scratching my hairs' kinda ending but rather a 'WoW" ending. i truly recommend it.

to anyone who wish to know my selection of favourite horror movies, here it is: - the shining - psycho - the ring remake - the grudge (original) - jaws - the exorcist - the eye (hong kong) - dead end .......etc etc