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Madhouse (1981)

Dir: Ovidio G. Assonitis

Julia (Trish Everly) works at a school for deaf children and seems content with her life. But her past is forever stalking her in the form of her twin Sister, Mary (Allison Biggers), who and has become disfigured by a creeping disease and is currently residing in a Mental Hospital
We learn that Mary was nasty to Julia when they were kids. Especially on Julia's Birthday.
It turns out in fact that Mary used to burn Julia with hot sticks and needles while she lay terrified into submission by Mary's savage pet dog!
Julia says that she felt she was made helpless against the assaults, almost like Mary had a controlling telepathic link to her.

One night Mary escapes and a guard has his throat ripped out by a….savage dog!
As the bodies fall (including her favourite pupil who is bumped off, off screen, by the horrible hound) and Julia hears the sounds of the dog from her childhood trauma, she tries to make her creepy Priest Uncle, Father James (Dennis Robertson) and her boyfriend Sam (Michael MacRae) believe that her twisted Sister (ha!) is after her. And worse, her Birthday is approaching……….

This little opus was another of those poor titles thrown to the dogs during the Video Nasties scare and found itself stuck on the infamous 'Nasties' List.

In reality, although it does have a few 'moist' moments, it is just another badly paced Psycho on the loose flick like thousands of others.

The elements that really stand out are some of the loony characters. The supposed crazy killer Mary is the typical growling nut bag, but it's the other supporting characters that are actually creepier!
In almost all of his scenes Father James comes across as a most slimy creature. All strange looks and ranting sermons.
The Japanese Janitor in Julia's apartment skulks around in the dark and rambles endlessly in dubiously comic pigeon English.
But top of the nuts is Julia's Landlady who is a hyperactive shriek machine who dances around her room waving her arms around madly while singing to herself!

Direction by Ovidio G. Assonitis (who famously fired a young James Cameron from "Piranha 2" and went on to be Executive Producer on "Scent of a Woman" of all things!) is mostly lifeless and the film really suffers during the many 'walking around in the dark' sequences.
It's hard to judge the right amount of time to spend on a suspenseful build-up. Having just enough to tease the audience but not keeping it going on for so long you simply instil impatience in the viewer for the payoff.

Effects wise the film has very tame actual murders, and only splashes the blood around during the dog attacks. One attack involving an unfortunate female victim is delightfully over the top in its Canine chowing down nastiness.
The most famous scene actually involves that 80's weapon of choice, the power drill. But the victim is not whom you might think it would be and the model head is obviously a rather clunky fake.
This also brings me to the opening scene where a young girl hits what seems to be a life-size Female dummy in the face with a rock. The face bleeds for sure, and it's shot like it's some kind of dream, but the face is so obviously fake the viewer (at least this one) was left confused as to whether this was meant to be a dummy, or a real face created with bad effects. Things are even more confused at the end of the sequence when the slumped, bloody figure is very obviously a real person.
The messiest of the gore is saved for the completely barking (Oh! The jokes just keep on coming!) finale, where we have a very meaty splatter sequence.

And if you are a fan of Deodato's "Cannibal Holocaust" you will instantly notice some very familiar music scoring the murders. Yes, it old Riz Ortolani using some of his "Holocaust" musical nuggets.

The aforementioned finale is where this film actually comes alive and treats us to one of the most outrageous displays of 'mad killer' acting ever seen.
The scenery is ripped to shreds with as much camp gusto as the dog used on its victim's throats.
Our Psycho (there is a twist here people!) sings, rants and dances around the self made charnel house in manic glee and we have a glimpse of what the rest of this, otherwise very ho hum movie, could have been.