Madman
Tags: grindhouse film, murder, violence, cult, horror, storytelling

Plot synopsis:
T.P, one of the senior counselors at a camp, is telling a scary story around a campfire to the young campers and the other counsellors - who consist of Betsy, Ellie, Dave, Stacy, Bill, and Max the late middle-aged head counselor. After T.P. finishes his story, Max begins to tell of a man named Madman Marz, who killed his whole family with an axe, was convicted, hit in the face with an axe, and hung for his crimes, only to break free of the noose and disappear into the woods. Max continues by saying that anyone who says his name above a whisper will awaken him and cause him to come back and kill that person. At that, Richie, a cocky teenager, stands up and screams Madman Marz, throwing a rock into his old house, smashing a window. Max, annoyed at Richie, ends the campfire, sending everyone to their cabins for the night, while he goes into town to retrieve supplies to help tear down the camp, since it was to end the next day. While they go back to the cabins, Richie sees Madman Marz up in a tree, and goes to see if it's really him. Everyone else gets back to camp, and Max and Dave try to retrieve a felling axe that is placed into a log, but it is stuck. The cook, Dippy, comes out, and wishes them all a good night, before Marz comes in and rips his throat out, and grabs the felling axe out of the log.T.P. tries to get Betsy to go out with him, but she refuses, causing a scene. After the kids have gone to sleep, the rest of the counselors see Max off and go into the rec room to relax. T.P apologizes for being rude to Betsy and she goes with him to have sex in the hot tub, all the while being watched by Madman Marz. After this, Dave is called out to Richie's cabin, and the boys there tell him that Richie never came back, so he goes and informs the others, who are all rejoined up with each other. T.P decides to go and find him, and sets off into the woods, carrying a flashlight. He comes across an opening and calls for Richie, who is busy wandering around the woods looking for Marz. Suddenly, a noose falls over T.P's neck and lifts him up into the air on a tree branch, resulting Marz pulling him down and snapping his neck on impact.Back at the camp, Betsy and Stacy begin to talk about T.P. Stacy believes that T.P only wants sex, and apologized because he knew he would get some, but Betsy thinks he's a nice guy who really likes her. Realizing that it has been a long time since T.P. left, Dave decides to go find T.P and Richie. Dave ventures out into the woods and comes across T.P's hanging body. Panicked, he runs farther into the woods. Marz is behind him with his axe and begins to chase him. Dave finally falls over a fallen tree branch and is decapitated by Marz' axe. Betsy wants to talk to T.P, but finds out that he's still gone and begins to worry. Richie, meanwhile, is still out in the woods, but is now looking for the road back to camp, or someone to take him back. Stacy decides to take the car down to see where everybody is, suspecting that T.P's playing a trick on them. She gets into her car and drives out on the road, towards the woods by the campfire spot, and Marz's house, where we see him run out of. Stacy begins to look around for Dave, T.P, and Richie, but finds nothing, except an abandoned flashlight in the clearing where the two were killed, only T.P's body is now missing. Stacy begins to look around, and sees blood on the trees and starts to panic, running through the woods, until she spots Dave's decapitated body and head laying on the ground. She stifles her screams and rushes back to her car, and tries to drive away, only to have her engine stall. She opens the hood, not recognizing Marz on top of her car, and he jumps onto the car hood, causing it to slam down on Stacy and beheading her.Ellie and Bill have gone to have sex in the woods, leaving a worried Betsy back at camp. When she does not hear any word back, Betsy goes into the woods to find Ellie and Bill. Once she does, she tells them that she has to stay at camp to watch the kids and wait for the others to show up, and that Ellie and Bill should go and try to find them. Ellie and Bill get dressed and take Bill's car out to look for the others, while Betsy goes back to camp. While looking through the woods, Ellie sees Marz at Stacy's car, and begins to scream, causing Marz to flee and Bill come up to see what's wrong. She tells him that she saw Marz at Stacy's car, so both of them go up and decide to drive back to camp. The car doesn't start, having Bill exiting the car to see what's wrong. He sees Stacy's head on the engine, causing him to gag and making Ellie to get out of the car, where she screams and Bill discards the head in a cloth. They get back in the car and hurriedly drive away, only reaching the end of the road, when Bill is pulled from the car window by Marz, causing the car to crash into a tree, and Ellie to fall out of the door and into a ditch. She looks up and watches in horror, as Bill's back snapped by Marz, making her run back to the camp.Betsy is in one of the girl's cabins and does not see Ellie come back and try to find her. Ellie then goes into the kitchen cabin and tries to find Betsy, but with no luck, she goes outside when Marz appears at the door, chasing her through the cabin until she hides in a refrigerator. Once she thinks he leaves, she climbs out and tries to leave, only to have him spring up and hit her with Marz' axe. Betsy finally leaves the cabin and sees Marz running around the campgrounds, causing her to grab a double-barreled shotgun and quietly makes her way to the open-doored kitchen cabin, only to have Ellie at a window, causing her to accidentally shoot her. Realizing that Ellie is dead, she runs and wakes up the kids, telling them to get into the bus they took to get there. They quickly do and she joins them, and begins to drive the bus away from camp, only to have Marz pop up at the door and try to get in. Betsy beats his hand, making him let go and has the oldest boy drive the rest to safety, while she goes to kill Marz and save her friends. She gets out, and follows Marz to his house out in the woods.Once inside she tries not to make any noise, but makes a step creak, causing him to come at her in the darkness, where she shoots him with her shotgun. He snatches it from her during a struggle, when he hits her in the face with his claw nails, ripping her face open. He then drags her towards the basement, while she tries to get away, shoves her up onto a coat hanger poker, She pulls out a hunting knife and stabs him in the shoulder, causing him to knock over a candle. He presumably leaves after having knocked over the candle. The candle begins to burn everything, including the victims he had killed and the skeletons of his wife and two children. The ending shows Max driving back to the camp and almost hitting a shaken Richie, who now says that Madman Marz is real.

Review: In the beginning of the film, a group of camp counselors and preteens are around a campfire— it's the week before Thanksgiving (who goes to camp in November?), and since the camp is shutting down, the counselors decide to tell the story of a local farmer named Madman Marz who hacked his family to death with an axe.
One of the counselors decides it would be a good idea to call out his name to the surrounding woods, and lo and behold, when they come a'calling, he comes a'killin'.Hailed as a cult film by many fans, I'm halfway baffled as to why so many consider "Madman" to be as extraordinary as they do.
A slick attempt at a slasher with very impressive night photography.Madman Marz, the film's killer, is a local legend made flesh who kills a bunch of wimpy teens and their counselors.Joe Giannone's direction of the suspense sequences and ground level camerawork is a cut above.
However, his body disappeared and now it is said that when his name is uttered, he appears and randomly hacks around for a while.From here, a story emerges about a psycho killer, aptly named Madman Marz who likes wielding various sharp, heavy implements - chiefly an axe.
Despite some inane killing, Marz shows true compassion when saving characters with a bad 70s/80s 'do from additional shame and embarrassment by mashing their head right into a car's engine and jamming the bonnet down on their shaggy mess of hair (that's one shonky sounding starter motor).While it won't win any awards for originality, you have to admire the simple fun that Madman offers.
Whether it be watching the "special" campers get separated and randomly massacred in the woods or the screaming blonde try to hide in a refrigerator, there is no doubt that Madman is a very under-stated horror classic..
MADMAN is a pretty anemic horror film that copies everything from Friday THE 13th except for suspense and believability.
"Madman" starts with the typical scene of teens sitting around the campfire listening to scary tales.A head of camp,Max tells them the true story of Madman Marz.Marz was a brutal farmer who lived in the house by the campsite and who beat his wife and two kids.During one such fight he even had part of his nose bitten off!One night the freaky farmer took his axe and chopped up his family as they slept,and for such a nasty deed the locals decided to whack him across the face with his axe and string him up from a tree.One their return they find Marz has vanished,taking the bodies of his family with him.Now it's said he roams the woods looking for people to chop and string up.If you say his name above a whisper...Madman Marz will get you!
"Madman" is a typical early 80's slasher flick that provides some genuine chills.The cinematography is surprisingly striking with some lovely blue tinged night scenes.Madman Marz is a really creepy psycho and there is plenty of gore including a messy throat slashing,a nasty axe in the chest murder plus a couple of severed heads.The ending is surprisingly downbeat and the action is fast-paced.Give this wonderful slasher flick a chance.8 out of 10..
The old man who runs the camp tells the story of Madman Marz, a deranged man who killed his family with an axe, not far away from the camp.
Naturally one of the kids make fun of the story, but what no one realizes is that the legend is real, and that Madman Marz is still lurking around in the woods by the camp...I think Madman is definitely one of the best backwoods/camp slasher films to come out of the 1980's, It's got a big, bad villain with a huge axe, it's got a semi attractive cast and it's got a decent amount of gore.
The story may not be original but it still packs a punch but it's still a movie to be watched more than once.All in all Madman is definitely underrated and doesn't deserve to be forgotten..
On the last night at a cottage for gifted kids, Max the proprietor of the place, tells a story about Madman Marz, a local farmer that killed his own family and was properly hung by the locals for this crime.
I think that a complete guide of the slasher subgenre it's almost impossible to write: because of its very simple&cheap formula, a lot of movie have been produced since the beginning of the 80s.Among these, one of the earliest and most appreciable is MADMAN by Giannone, which is a very honest low-budget flick with some variations from the original (Cunningham's) model and a more fairy-tale oriented atmosphere (the nominal villain really looks like an ogre).
Yeah there is a summer camp and people die but the kills are all original, the story line is more creepy, and the whole picture takes place at night.
It's another one of those teenagers going camping in the woods movies with really stupid dialogue, bad acting and loud scary music coming in at the appropriate time.
There are some truly ridiculous scenes--a man gets his head cut off and, a few minutes later, a girl comes by, looks at the bloody headless body and says "Are you OK?"; a couple are making love in a tent--their friends outside tell them to come out--the guy yells "COMING!" etc etc.There are only two highlights here--the death by the hood of a trunk and a nice shot of a guy's butt while going into a hot tub (it's rare you get any male nudity in a horror film).
I didn't want this review to turn into a scathing attack...but there are several things that producers need to be aware of when making a horror movie on a summer camp; 1.The name has to be original.
4. The death scenes should contain at least a little violence and possibly some ketchup or another condiment of some kind -not just 'madman marz' casually strolling toward the victim and then a shot of their face releasing a few insipid yells.After watching 'Slaughterhouse'(which i recommend) - i remember the cold October evening i ordered 'madman', i really thought i had found another rare gem, but luck was not on my side that night, oh no!
The movie opens with a good score and vintage credits (seriously vintage) and then to a campfire where counselors and campers listen to the old legend of Madman Marz.
Of course, a cocky little camper screams his name and the terror begins.Unlike other slasher movies of the 80s, "Madman" takes itself seriously which probably helped the film.
After the success of movies like Friday the 13th and Halloween, there followed thousands of slasher film imitators throughout the late seventies and early eighties.
Plot: The owner of a children's camp, the campers and the camp counselors are sitting around a campfire as the camp owner tells them the legend of "Madman Marz", a local farmer who lived in a farmhouse right next to the camp.
Madman (1982) ** (out of 4) Minor slasher has a group of kids and their councilors in the woods telling scary stories when one is told about Madman Marz, a deranged farmer who killed his wife and kids with an axe.
This film has gathered a small cult following over the past few years and it's easy to see why because there is some good stuff here but overall the movie just doesn't work well enough to put it along side such classics like Friday THE 13TH and THE BURNING.
This early '80s slasher manages to out-do some of its "Friday the 13th" sequels and clones in terms of entertainment value.It's a well-made production that contains some good performances, a few surprises (borderline-shocks), decent effects and a theme / song that will bury itself in the recesses of the viewer's brain.While not being a masterpiece of the genre ("Madman" suffers when compared to a slicker, more polished movie such as "The Burning"), this is a competently put-together film that delivers enough thrills and spills to pass the time.The lumbering killer's no Jason Vorhees but has a presence that will be remembered once the end titles have rolled.I liked this movie and while I won't be rushing back for a second viewing, I'd give it the proverbial "thumbs-up"..
"Madman" has some things going for it- Decent gore, a nasty lookin' killer, moments of tension, and some good blue-tinged camera work for the forest (and abandoned house) scenes.
Cunningham's minor classic Friday the 13th (1980) is this film, Madman (1981) that features all the usual cliches and elements usually found in these cash ins, but has more the bad ones, unfortunately.The so called plot is the routine thing where a bunch of young people plus their leader are on some camp and one night the elder starts to tell about historic events in the eerie campfire as a guy named "Madman Marz" once slaughtered his family and then vanished, and that if his name is mentioned or even whispered, he will appear and kill again.
The other scenes don't have quite the same impact as that mentioned one, but still the film is very grisly and gory, and the ending is even surprisingly pessimistic and thus unexpected.The real horror elements, like the atmosphere created by wonderful images and sounds, are nothing special here and don't have anything to make the film stand out.
A bunch of teenagers listen to the story of Madman Marz, a farmer who got drunk and killed his wife and kids.
The camp counselors aren't any better, they make REALLY dumb decisions that will have you yelling and laughing at the screen.There's also the funniest love scene I think I've ever scene in a movie where a couple twirl-yes twirl- around around in a hot tub.The "Madman" himself was sometimes kind of scary looking and sometimes he grunted around like a sad dog.
MADMAN is a different sort of slasher film, opening w/ an a capella song performed by one of the characters, and having an early, lengthy hot tub scene with no grisly deaths involved!
Which is a little odd because there were some good gory scenes, but I think what might've ruined it for me is the monster-like element in "Madman Marz".
But the story is rather simple and the ending isn't the next big thing.It do contains the typical elements of a slasher and I was surprised that Gaylen Ross (Besty) of Dawn Of The Dead (1978) fame went naked but it's rather slow and doesn't make sense all of the time.
What we have is a chilly atmosphere(love the creepy blue hue throughout), an interesting killer(a cross between Santa Claus and ZZ Top), and a very effective ending, which adds to this film; otherwise, it would be your standard slasher with stupid counselors.
The ending is kind of meh, a bit anticlimactic for a slasher movie, however I did enjoy my time with the film.
Meanwhile, a hulk of a man starts to bump off the teens.The slasher genre produced a seemingly endless list of badly executed sex-and-murder-in-the-woods movies during the 1980s, all following a set formula, usually suffering from minimal cash injection and often made by directors never heard from again.
Just why I keep returning to the genre I know will ultimately disappoint is a question I asked myself at various points as I watched Joe Giannone's Madman, despite the film being one of the genre's better offerings, at least aesthetically speaking.Shadowy lighting and a subtle use of music to announce the arrival of Marz help the film drum up some atmospheric set-pieces, and a few gory moments offer the desired amount of blood and just a little in way of invention.
***SOME SPOILERS*** He was a simple man were told by the head camp counselor wise old Max, Carl Fredericks, who toiled the field in the daytime and drank himself unconscious, at the local watering hole, in the evenings.One evening many many years ago, Max continues with his story, Farmer Marz, Paul Ehlers, suddenly went mashuga-crazy-and hacked to death, and into little pieces, his wife and two sons as they were fast asleep in his house.
At the expense of most of their own!Better then your average 1980's slasher film that has the crazed 6 foot 5 inch Marz make chop meat of almost everyone in the cast by the time the movie is over.
It was even more tragic on the part of Marz's victims in that they were so clueless to what he was up to, or the fact that Marz's even existed, that they ended up dead without even knowing what was going on in the movie!****SPOILER ALERT**** The two persons most responsible for bringing Marz back to life Max and Richie, Jimmy Steel, somehow avoided the crazed madman's wrath by just being in the right place at the right time.
Stupid characters are common for horror movies but in the case of Madman the characters aren't just stupid but several of them look like they don't even have a brain in their heads.
They are Halloween and Friday the 13th, so at the time "Madman" was released there was a very intense search for a slasher, or at least a good one...
So, horror fans, don´t be afraid of "Madman" Marz, it´s a great fun of a movie.
A lumbering axe murderer called Madman Marz awakens from his tomb and starts chopping up campers and counselors alike at a nearby New York summer camp.Incredibly dumb, and rather boring at times, but earns extra points thanks to its super-stylish direction and lighting effects.
I understand that films of the early '80's are a lot different from today's "murdered in the first 30 seconds" style but the tail end disco/love song and lengthy dialogue killed more people watching the film with me than Madman did in the film itself.
The movie starts out with a group of young people around a camp fire, telling the story of Madman Marz.
Madman is definitely worth a look – from the isolated camp trails to the eerily shot Marz house, this film allows us to shut our brain off and enjoy a chilling collection of events.
I have fond memories of watching this as a child, when mindless teenage slasher films were the hype of the day, like 'Hell Night', 'The Burning', 'Friday the 13th'...
To give a tbh, this film is a RIP off of friday the 13th in many different ways, but remains a good cult slasher to watch, if looking for an adventure.
However, these are minor nitpicks & really I should stop expecting any of these characters to be memorable unless the film has 'Halloween' 'Nightmare' or 'Friday' in the title.Overall, 'Madman' is a wonderful little gem that I try to include in my horror fan friend's watch-lists.
If you love slasher films or horror, don't pass up 'Madman'..
Its one-dimensional characters, ridiculous death scenes, cheesy script, over-the-top killer, and fundamental plot all makeup exactly what you would expect in a slasher movie - and you will love every bloody second of it!
"Madman" succeeds because of that - it is what it set out to be and is nothing more.The story is simple and you definitely have seen it in other movies such as "Friday the 13th", "Sleepaway Camp", and "The Burning".
Why "Madman" is so great is not because of its ridiculous plot line or cheesy acting, but because it is one of the few movies that truly represent an era of film-making that no longer exists.
There are some okay gore effects and some minor jolts here and there, but this is mostly pretty rotten, and it features, with the possible exception of Harriet Bass as Stacy, one of the homeliest casts I've ever seen in one of these kinds of movies (so don't expect any nude, late-night swims to keep things interesting, but do expect a lot of close-ups of goofy, unattractive faces -- sorry if I sound shallow, but if I'm gonna watch a cheap slasher flick with bad acting and underdeveloped characters, I expect at least a good-looking cast!)Lowlight:  One of the most ridiculous make-out scenes ever filmed, featuring the bitchy blonde heroine and her doofus boyfriend (the same putz who sings that opening campfire ditty) slowly and seductively circling each other in a hot tub while a cheesy soft-rock song plays in the background.
The only reason to suggest this movie is if your sick of watching Jason and you want a brief change in killers...So Just don't expect to much from this film because the plot is no different from FT13 and the acting is no better.
I remember my mum and dad bringing this back from the video shop when i was 8 years old , they sent me upto bed , but when they eventually finished watching it , they too went to bed , so i sneaked up and watched this classic.My best part is when Mad man marz brings the axe down across the girls stomach , you can actually see it cutting in.I have to rate this 8 out of 10 , as i have never forgot about the film.excellent , its a must see for any good horror fan , it is hard to get , but Ebay has them for sale under the title Madman , they have it on dvd / vhs..
What can I say but bad acting, bad fx, bad lighting, bad music, and a really stupid looking killer.Madman has got to be the worst horror movie I have seen in many years.
That's why thrillingly, scary movies like "Madman" get seriously overlooked in the abyss of thousands of unpopular horror films.
For what it's worth, this is the only slasher film I've seen in which the killer's legend is actually SUNG by one the characters, so Madman certainly scores a few dubious points for originality there.Once the ball gets rolling, everything else pretty much runs by the book.