Review

In this day and age, when the overwhelming majority of horror films can be divided into two categories (overly-slick Hollywood music videos that generate little suspense and ultra-low-budget, shot-on-video in the backyard with some friends larks), it's hard to complain about some of the little flaws in this reasonably well done Scandinavian take on American grindhouse horror. After all, it's shot on 35mm, it's got a lot of gore and tension and some really gritty violence. But, there is one flaw, in particular, that's sure to elicit some chuckles (from American audiences, anyway) and that is the characters' accents.

See, the film takes place in America, somewhere near Minneapolis, but for some reason all of the characters speak their English just like they learned it from watching those two Euro trash aliens in Dude, Where's My Car. For a European audience, that hardly makes a difference, but for a Yank like me, it's more than a little distracting.

Other than the accents, the other major issue is: why don't any of the characters have cell phones? It's possible that the film is supposed to take place in the '70s, but that's never established firmly enough for their absence to not be distracting. Still, cultural miscues aside, Madness does a reasonably good job of making the audience care about the protagonists, not with any cloying, emotionally manipulative back story, but simply by making them seem like decent human beings who actually care about their companions. This empathy makes the suspense heightened when they are put into jeopardy. Additionally, the villains, whose motivation is never explained, come across as pure chaos - revolting creatures who act for no reason and who wreak bloody mutilations wherever they're let loose.

Overall, Madness does a reasonably good job at creating suspence and turning stomachs even if some of the gore moments are less convincing than others and some of the fight scenes come across as awkward. If you're looking for a grindhouse horror with a bit of professional polish that isn't cut like a music video, then Madness is definitely a good fit - just try not to chuckle at the silly Europeans.

 -- Daniel Reed