Leofwine_draca MADHOUSE is a piece of trash horror film that seems to want to be the next GOTHIKA, although it's so cheaply made and poorly-shot that it's a bit of a chore to sit through. It's also one of those films made in the early 2000s that looks incredibly dated for modern audiences, amazing really when it's only 12 years old as of my viewing. Compare it to similar produce from the 1990s or even 1980s and you can instantly see how dated it looks.The film features BLAIR WITCH PROJECT actor Joshua Leonard in the lead role and you quickly realise why he wasn't in many films (clue: he isn't very good). He plays a young intern who arrives at a creepy old mental institute and soon becomes involved in the usual run of weird goings-on amid the staff and patients. The patients do their best to be weird and disturbing but when one of them is a Divine rip-off they just come across as quite sad. Supporting cast members include one-time popular starlet Jordan Ladd (CABIN FEVER) and old-timer Lance Henriksen stuck in the clichéd role of the institute director. The worst thing by far about MADHOUSE is the horribly cheap direction from a guy who has made GINGERDEAD MAN 3: Saturday NIGHT CLEAVER. I think that says it all.

markandyanni (Average rating between the woman and I, for once we actually agree on a rating) He: OK, so quick cut macabre cinematography in the beginning of the movie does a great job in capturing my attention every time. Add to that an insane asylum (complete with requisite crazy folks), a creepy mannish nurse, and one or two hotties for sexual tension, and you have the ingredients for a sufficiently watchable horror movie. Yeah, as one would predict, the movie contains the overly predictable twist which you're not supposed to predict. The overall plot is a bit ... um ... thin, but thankfully horror movies don't need too much of that. It gets in the way of the killing.She: I love this kind of movie. The psychological part is great. House of madness. The plot is very interesting, actually. It's out of my expectation in the end. Above all, it's a very good movie. If you are into twisted and puzzling movies, this would be your number one choice. You never know what is gonna happen.

DiscoViolento The reason why this movie got into my hands was simply me having to buy for a certain amount of money to get my hands on another movie. New horror has continued to disappoint me, so, naturally, I thought this one would as well. I have to say that I was wrong.Clark Stevens is the name of our hero, doing his practice at at Cunningham Hill, a mental hospital which seems more like a place to keep the insane instead of helping them. This is, at least, what Clark thinks and he's more than eager to change things. A murder, a mysterious boy and an equally mysterious patient later, making changes in hospital policy becomes a secondary problem. You probably get the idea, this is a classic plot, classic character and all the classic twists and turns. And no, it doesn't make this film worse, it makes it better. Because for some reason, I get an old-school vibe watching this history unfold. There are scares. There is some blood. And there's actually some frightening scenes (especially a dream-sequence). In these Saw-horror days, it's really refreshing to see a movie that doesn't try to be something it's not. This movie doesn't try to outsmart you. You can probably figure out the end pretty quickly, but that doesn't keep you from wanting to see what happens. In other words; this is a good, plain horror movie. Well worth the 3, or so, dollars I spent buying it.

miladyb I'll just keep this straight, and simple. This movie is NOT a good movie. There are some pretty terrible jump cuts, tons of continuity errors, boring dialogue, and other mistakes I would commonly see in any amateur film. There was plenty of nice looking gore(as well as the bad looking gore), but that doesn't mean much if the deaths are extremely predictable, and at some moments absolutely ridiculous. Example: Turning on a radio to terrible rock music just to see a woman be tasered by some 1980's electric-blue lightning effects. Of course the torture went on to some more gruesome effects, but that did not improve the quality of the scene. The only thing remotely creepy about this movie are the horror montages commonly seen in many other horror movies of jittering, deformed, and mangled humans/creatures. I will, despite my opinion of this movie, acknowledge the well thought out plot. I don't believe it to be a good plot, rather I'm just happy to see that everything in the movie was actually there for a purpose. The climax of the movie, if you can call it that, was short and unsatisfying. After surprising the viewers with the identity of the killer (if you hadn't figured it out by then), the confrontation between the killer and what seemed to be his number one nemesis was short and unsweet. There was no interesting dialogue between the two, the death was more boring than the earlier scene of the suicide patient hanging from the ceiling, and it was followed by a very typical denouement. I can definitely say that I have seen plenty of movies worse than this, but that didn't stop me from being slightly embarrassed for asking friends to watch this with me.