Movie Review - Mansion of Madness
AKA:
Dr. Goudron's System
Dr. Tarr's Pit of Horrors
Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon
Edgar Allan Poe: Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon
House of Madness
La Mansión de la locura
The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Feather
So for my second post in the vampire blog-a-thon, I am reviewing... another non-vampire movie from Bite Night! What the hell, Bite Night? Mansion of Madness doesn't even have any biting in it! Where are the vampires? How did you come up with this supposed collection of vampire movies? But anyway, qualms about false marketing aside, I still got these movies for a cheap price, so I shouldn't complain too much.
Mansion of Madness, directed by Juan López Moctezuma, is a film based off of Edgar Allen Poe's story Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon. I've never read it, so I can't really say how close it resembles its originator, but I'm going to take a guess and say that it strays pretty far off the path. Our main protagonist, Gaston (Arthur Hansel) hopes to infiltrate a mysterious mansion that is home to a new style of treatment for the insane, run by Dr. Maillard (Claudio Brook). While Maillard does not normally let strangers into the castle, Gaston's friend Couvier (Martin LaSalle) has connections, and Gaston is admitted to see the wonders of the castle. Yet while there, Gaston finds that the guards, and even Maillard, are as insane as the ill they are treating, and Maillard's Soothing Therapy has not been working. Gaston comes upon Maillard's niece, Eugénie (Ellen Sherman), who he immediately falls in love with; but after Eugénie attempts to attack Maillard, the truth comes out that everyone in this dungeon of madness is indeed crazy, and Gaston and Couvier (who courageously leaves his cousin to be raped and/or dismembered at the hands of the loony) attempt to escape along with Eugénie.
Look at how annoying that is.
The movie begins with an annoying roll of the credits, which inverts the color of the video so that everything is dark and red. The audience can make out subtle objects, like humans, but other than that, the picture is disorienting and is quite an awkward choice for opening the film. I was wondering if the picture would always look like that, because if it was going to be fuzzy and red for an hour and a half, I probably wasn't going to make it through the movie. Luckily, after the credits end, the picture returns to normal, but it's discouraging to be subjected to the weird color scheme at the beginning of the film.
Things get better from there. Gaston is a surly, likable character who the audience wants to see survive these horrors. His abstinence of Maillard's "treatment" throughout his tour is apparent, and as the audience understands the predicament of the mentally ill (the starvation, the abuse, the rape sequence), and the transformation of Maillard's personality from delighted to demented, one starts to feel for Gaston. Also, there is subtle placement of the insanity of the caretakers of the asylum as well. The guards pace back and forth, saluting each other as if they don't remember they did it just a second ago. Maniacal laughing of the guards is in just about every scene, and the guards just don't seem quite right, even from the beginning of the movie.
If it weren't for some of the more serious and gruesome aspects of the story, the film could have been a horror comedy. The soundtrack at times sounds like the music to Scooby Doo, and during some of the chase sequences, cartoonish music, complete with flute trills and woodblock, can be heard. This creates quite the disturbing atmosphere when paired with scenes that include rape.
Yet most of the movie is more funny than shocking. The props don't leave much to the imagination - a log used as a weapon seems like it's actually an early version of a one of those foam pool toys. While the movie doesn't seem to be too shy, using a lot of unnecessary nudity, it does leave most of the gore out. There's only one violent scene, a gun shot to the head, which doesn't even depict too much blood.
The movie's not too long, so it's hard to get really bored with it. However, some of it is a little wordy, especially during two sequences. One is when Maillard is trying to explain something about pyramids and electricity, and while it sounds fantastic, it doesn't really make any sense. Another point is an explanation of Eugénie's dance that she performs, again spoken by Maillard, who attempts to tell of how Eugénie ceases to exist and her soul is trapped in a stone, or something like that. But again, it all just sounds like a bunch of claptrap, which one can interpret to be the illness of Maillard.
While entertaining, the movie feels more like Monty Python and less like a Hammer film. It has the same look, but it just doesn't have enough going for it. It was a good adventure while it lasted, but when it's over, there's really no looking back at it, and you probably will feel a little dirty at laughing at the cartoon sound effects during the more serious sequences. By the end of the film, the manic laughter will be grating, and the wandering woman at the end of the film will have you asking, "Wait, where's Couvier's cousin? And what does this woman have to do with anything?" Then the inverse colors will set in again, reminding you how frustrating the movie actually turned out to be. You'll turn off your television and laugh, saying, "That was fun, but totally unrewarding."
Last updated: 2010-01-18 08:07:17 by user01
