Madness (2010) Reviews

• Brutality on a shoestring

  MarshallStaxx2010-04-04

  Madness plays like a student-made homage to Texas Chainsaw Massacre / Hills Have Eyes etc. The acting is so terrible it is unintentionally hilarious, as I doubt any of the cast have any acting skill / experience whatsoever. The plot is basically non-existent and much of the characters actions make no sense at all. The strange thing is that it features Swedish actors playing American characters, who are travelling across backwoods USA, but it is actually filmed on location in Sweden. And the 'bad guys' talk in Swedish whilst the 'good guys' all talk in English with heavy Swedish accents. Rather bizarre. The violence is pretty brutal and senseless, with some rather effective gore effects (given the shoestring budget), although the violence becomes rather stale, generic and uncreative, with no stand-out set-pieces. The film does have a kind of lo-fi charm, and probably would have been more entertaining had the film-makers acknowledged this by making the movie more 'tongue-in-cheek' rather than the stark and serious tone they have tried to set. The one redeeming factor is that the whole thing (including writing / directing / shooting / editing / effects) was all carried out by a team of three guys, quite an admirable effort. Also, it's rather hard to hate on a movie that keeps it's two female lead characters in cheerleader outfits the whole time.

• Horror movie about redneck sadistic killers and their human prey

  greenparadise-704-5544532010-04-04

  "Madness" is about a group of blond-haired cheerleaders (who actually look like they're 30-plus) and male travellers who end up becoming the prey of sadistic rednecks in the middle of nowhere. They're on their way to Minnesota, although that's totally irrelevant. Get ready for some male bondage style torture as the film unfolds - but don't hold your breath: most of it is done off-camera. The female actors disappear from the movie pretty fast. It's all quite confusing. The movie starts off as what apparently promises to be another blood-drenched horror movie from the league of "The Hostel" with some quality gore and a horrific forced abortion scene... it's all very promising, that is, until the actors actually start to speak! It's hard to tell what the director Sonny Laguna actually wanted this film to be. Is it about a group of wannabe Americans from Sweden travelling around the US of A, and insisting on ignoring their mother tongue when they are together? In that case, their strong Scandinavian accents could perhaps be forgiven. As it turns out, the director seems to have wanted to use Swedish actors to pass for Americans, and the result will only make viewers cringe, as it is totally unconvincing, unnatural and just plain wrong. Then we find the villains speaking what must be Swedish, although we're in redneck country... which does nothing but add to the confusion. Apart from a few quality scenes of gore, actors with insufficient English language skills were used in an American setting, and this seriously affects the movie right from the start. It's difficult to determine what type of audience this film is aimed at. It will presumably only be a box office success in those parts of the world where people have poor knowledge of English. It merits no more than a 3 out of 10.

• more backwoods mayhem......

  nightwatch47732011-11-20

  I ordered this film last month from the us because i need to have every backwoods horror film in my video store here in Vancouver ( yes there is still a video store left in this city ). It's a guilty pleasure for me to engage and embrace a new backwoods film regardless if it is horrible. Madness had all the ingredients to be one of the worst backwood horror films of all time ie.. low shoe string budget, horrible acting, Swedish film pretending to be an American film with Swedish actors speaking with a British accent etc etc but instead i watched in awe and suspense one of the best backwoods horror films of the last decade or so. First of all we have an opening that will jade the most jaded horror fanatics. Wow, the start would give Carver's ball crunching scene a run for its money ( well maybe not ).After this we are introduced to the four leads which end of being stranded in the middle of nowhere and than the mayhem ensues and never lets go. The film has a longer than usual running time for films of this ilk but that didn't matter at all. The two main antagonists speak only in Swedish and they are creepy as hell especially the one with the screwed up eye. The bandannas on these two freaks of nature only added to their macabre decor. What makes our protagonists so likable in this film is that they seem to go through just as much grisly chaos ala ash ( Bruce Campbell ) from the first two evil dead flicks. Even though the budget of this film might remind you of some other basement fodder flicks like machined and reborn, this one on the other hand wears its low budget like a decayed badge of honor.... Fantastic stuff and not for the squeamish....

• Loved this movie

  lvslezak2010-04-16

  What can I say - I'm a fan of this sort of horror-gore-torture films, and this was right up my alley. It played out a lot like "Carver", another excellent horror movie. There were some original methods used to kill people in the film, and the bad guys were especially gruesome. I guess I'm in the minority when I say I loved this movie, but it just goes to show that there isn't any one style of movie that is right or wrong. If you like the horror-gore genre, I definitely recommend you check this out. If you are more concerned with quality acting, then don't (although I will say that I was so focused on the action that I didn't notice anything wrong with the acting, although the foreign accent did seem a bit odd.)

• turn off the lights sit back and enjoy..

  rob-nean2010-04-13

  first ill say stick with this movie or you will miss-what ill call a great low budget movie.. when i watched this i was glued to my screen and thoroughly enjoyed from start to end.. if this had a bigger budget it (in my books) could of been a big hit.. OK the acting not 100% and the effects are not all that good, (hence small budget). but i promise if you stick with this movie you will enjoy,, especially if you are a horror fan such as wrong turn,, hills have eyes,,and and other twisted horrors. ...warning do not watch if a little afraid of blood as there are some scenes that could offend your angelic nature,,, the brutality how-ever made the movie for me.. i'm giving this film a eight out of ten if the budget were in the same region as some higher profile films such as wrong turn id have rated higher.. but in my eyes i see low budget films as having heart to them where some high budget films have nothing but glamorous shots and over paid actors who simply just cant act.