Hello horror fans! I'm The Mad Pancaker, and welcome to my website! This website serves two purposes. First, to be the central hub for my podcast, The International House of Horror Podcast. On it, my cohost, SCARY PERRY!!!, and I review, wait for it, horror movies. Shocking, I know. You can find it on most podcast apps, so please check it out.
The second purpose of the website is to give me a place to blog about horror movies. On the podcast, we have an opening segment called Hot Cakes. (Yes, everything is going to be pancake themed. I apologize in advance.) During Hot Cakes, we talk about things like recent horror movie purchases, horror video games we recently played, upcoming releases, and any other horror related media we have been watching that isn't the feature film we are reviewing for that episode. However, Hot Cakes is a brief segment, and not meant for a lengthier in-depth discussion of those movies. Thus, the creation of Short Stacks: a blog that allows me to go into more detail than a Hot Cake, but not a scene-by-scene breakdown of a movie like our podcast reviews. (I know, I probably talk way too much about a movie during the cast. Unfortunately, when you have a photographic memory, you sometimes think that all the minutiae are important. I've been working on cutting back, but feel free to leave feedback on the podcast or this blog. Your feedback is greatly appreciated.) Oh, and before we dive in, there will be spoilers, but I'll spare you the random spoiler warning of the podcast.
For the first ever Short Stack, I'm talking about I, Madman (1989), directed by Tibor Takacs. For the cast, first up we have Jenny Wright as protagonist Virginia. While I'm not super familiar with her work, it looks like she has been in some other notable films. She's in Near Dark (1987), a film on that's been on my radar for a while that I definitely want to check out. She also gets cyber banged to death in The Lawnmower Man (1992), another film I've never seen but want to. (I always remember The Lawnmower Man the trailer being at the start of my Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare VHS tape, which I watched frequently. I am a Freddy's Dead apologist; I love that movie.) To highlight one of her non-horror related works, she was in St. Elmo's Fire, which I have seen but didn't recognize her from it. And not to go off-horror here, but St. Elmo's Fire takes too long to St. Elmo's Fire. Don't make me wait for that John Parr 80s musical goodness.
Next up, we have Clayton Rohner playing Virginia's detective boyfriend. I first saw Clayton in April Fool's Day (1986) (check out our podcast review of it), and he keeps popping up in other films I've watched since, including Nightwish (1989) and Destroyer (1988), and always enjoy his performances. Finally, we have Randall William Cook playing the titular Madman (not to confused with the slasher Madman). Cook is an industry veteran, not really known for his acting but for his great special effects work, including the Terror Dogs in Ghostbusters and visual effects in The Gate (1987), which was also directed by Takacs. He also does the stop motion effects in this film. He'd go on to bigger and (debatably) better things such as The Lord of the Rings trilogy and King Kong (2005).
The film starts out with a bit of a fake out, as we have this 50s era apartment setting, with a monster in an adjoining apartment being released and attacking a young woman. But surprise! It's just Virginia reading this pulp book by a guy named Malcom Brand. But we quickly get a few hints that something isn't quite right, like a rose that was lying on the floor in the story being on the floor of Virginia's apartment. Virginia works at a local bookstore with her coworker friend, Destined to Die Later On, and looks for the only other book written by Brand, the A Tale of Two Cities. Just kidding, it's I, Madman of course! She begins reading it after it mysteriously appears by her apartment door. It's a story about a mad doctor who starts murdering people and using their body parts to assemble a new face to win the affection of an actress he stalks. (I'm not sure that's the best approach for trying to get someone to fall in love with you. But then again, if a get a new face, maybe I could get my celebrity crush, Victoria Justice, to fall in love with me. Hmm...)
As Virginia reads the book, she starts to see the mad doctor in real life, and it seems that the people around her are succumbing to the same fates as the victims in the book. She tries to convince the police that the murders are coming to life, but they think she's going crazy and even her boyfriend detective is hesitant to believe her. But is she just going crazy or has the novel actually come to life? And will she be able to stop the madman (not Mars) before he reenacts the ending, making Virginia his final victim?
This is the type of film I love to discover. With horror, after you've watched the big names in the genre and then wade through most of the less famous cult films and hidden gems, it's hard to find older films of quality that you don't hear talked about very often. And while I'm sure some people have talked about I, Madman before, I came into this one blind. And when you're going in blind watching a random movie from your watch later list, you never quite know how it's going to turn out. But I saw the name Clayton Rohner and said, "What the Hell!" and gave it a shot and was not disappointed I did. It's a fantastic and fun film, and I love films that make you question what is reality or hallucination from the main character's perspective. While not heavy on gore, it has some excellent practical effects and the mad doctor's stitched together face looks great as evolves. The only knock on the film would be the stop motion effects of the monster, which is disappointing considering Cook's great work in The Gate. The monster actually looks similar to the creature/little minions in The Gate, but at the beginning of the film it doesn't look that well integrated with the set and the live actors in the scenes. Perhaps the lighting is too bright for the stop motion effects? I'm not sure what the issue was but it's a little jarring. The stop motion redeems itself little bit a during the climax and looks better in those scenes. Overall, I, Madman is still a very fun and enjoyable 80s horror movie with a solid cast. I hope there's still a few more hidden gems like this one for me to discover from the 80s.
Overall Rating: 4 Pancakes
