Stevieboy666 Basic story about twin sisters, one good, the evil, culminating in a bloody birthday celebration (Happy Birthday to Me? Sisters? Deranged?). Also has a twist ending, but not a difficult one to figure out. Plenty of gory killings here, often carried out by the ugliest Rottweiler dog on the planet, and includes a power drill in the head scene but the gore is pretty fake looking. When the security guard gets attacked by the dog you can plainly see the thick padding around his right arm! Sadly, in between the deaths the film is somewhat plodding, not helped by an annoying soundtrack. As an Italian film it lack the style of say Argento or Fulci. As a one time "video nasty" it is better than dross such as Cannibals or the Mardi Gras Massacre but it's also a million miles away from Tenebrae or Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue.

acidburn-10 The plot = Julia (Trish Everly) a school teacher who works with deaf children, is haunted by memories of her twin sister Mary (Alison Biggers) who has since been institutionalised several years ago, and Julia hasn't seen her sister in seven years, but when her uncle persuades her to see her sister as she has been stricken by a rare and possibly fatal virus that has caused her face to become horribly deformed. Julia visits Mary in her hospital room, but Mary is sent into a jealous rage at the sight of her sister, who isn't suffering the same disfiguring ailment as she is. Mary threatens to make Julia suffer like she did in the past and reminds her that their birthday is only days away. However Julia's fears are confirmed when Mary escapes and starts killing off all her friends.I have recently watched this movie after reading rave reviews for it online and when I got round to seeing it, well I was a bit half and half. Madhouse does start off rather slow but uses elements of the standard slasher formula along with a few unique touches. One of the most obvious innovations is the use of a trained Rottweiler as a weapon, which is something different I suppose, but the effects weren't really up to that much, like the scene when the dog starts ripping the door apart, you can tell it's a stuffed toy and looks ridiculous and laughable which takes the tension right out of the scene. Not that any of this makes it a bad movie, there are good elements to this movie like The main location, the mansion where Julia lives, provides the essential creepy backdrop for the film's proceedings. And what I liked about this movie is that it's rather unsettling and doesn't hold back, rather mean spirited, I didn't like the fact that a deaf buy gets killed in this but other than that no-one is safe even the land-lady gets it, thank god as I found her a terrible actress and rather annoying, her chase scene had no suspense whatsoever, I just wanted her to die quicker. The finale Julia's nasty surprise party was done effectively, a morbid set piece that is very similar to the birthday party scene in Happy Birthday To Me, which was made in the same year. It is a disturbing sequence which is only lessened in intensity of maniacal laughter which I found rather unsettling. All in all an okay time-waster, a definite must see for all fans of slasher movies.

Bloomer And so the Video Nasty train that I'm on arrived here, at the MADHOUSE. And it's proved to be quite a scenic stop. In the context of Video Nastydom, it's a shock when you come across a title from the list of thirty-nine which mobilises production values as high as this one does. By any standards, this 1981 Italian psych-horror flick (though shot and set in America) is a film of remarkable aesthetic beauty. The widescreen photography is crystalline, the framing immaculate and Riz Ortolani's 'Cannibal Holocaust'ish score is well used. Ostensibly, this film could almost give Video Nasties a good name. The 'madness' is that it was banned in the first place. There are several scenes of strong gore that leap out, including the best dog attack scene since Suspiria, but for the most part this is a serene, slowly tense film, with a heroine who teaches deaf children. In keeping with the production values of this film, the school for the deaf children is sensitively and authentically portrayed.Reading all this is potentially enough to make you forget that this is supposed to be a horror film. A horror film about identical twin sisters, one good - the teacher of deaf children, Julia, played by gorgeous Trish Everly - and one BAD! The bad one's in the local madhouse-cum- hospital, felled by multiple diseases and physically deformative medical problems, but she wants out for her birthday to wreak vengeance on the good sis. Her main tool of violence is one of the worst dogs in cinema history, a trained rottweiler who just loves tearing out human throats. If you're dog phobic in general, this is probably a bad film to see. Everything's suspenseful and well acted for the first half of the film, but some extremely odd developments and pacing in the second half (a completely minor character being stalked by a villain turns out to be the longest setpiece in the film - stuff like that) drag proceedings down somewhat. This makes Madhouse less satisfying overall than I'd expected, but it definitely has enough fine qualities that I still think of it with a degree of favour. It's also nifty that the gory moments, as spaced apart as they are, are very gory.Note that Film 2000's DVD edition of this film has exceptional picture quality but godawful sound.

The_Void There Was a Little Girl often falls into the Giallo category, and while there are definitely Giallo elements in the film; I personally would say it's more of a twisted psychological thriller. The influence from Argento is clear, as the film features all of the absurd lighting of one of Argento's masterpieces, and the stylish way that many of the murders are presented reflects this also. This is the first film I've seen from director Ovidio G. Assonitis, and based on the strength of his directorial work here, I'm definitely interested in seeing his Jaws rip-off 'Tentacles', and his Exorcist rip-off 'Beyond the Door'. The plot follows Julia Sullivan; a young woman who is a teacher at a special school. Her childhood memories are haunted by her maniacal sister, who now resides in a mental institution. When visiting her sister for the first time in years, Julia discovers that she has been hideously deformed by a skin disease. Her visit to the hospital happens around the same time as a couple of murders, apparently committed by an insane dog; the same dog that Julia's sister apparently had control of as a child… My main problem with There Was a Little Girl is that it just doesn't feel much like an Italian film; and this isn't helped by the fact that the majority of the cast is made up of American actors. The production values are very good, however, and the cinematography is crisp and clear; and a delight to watch overall. The film does feature a fair amount of blood, although the murders aren't as shocking or as nasty as the ones featured in a number of other popular Italian films, and this makes it rather odd that There Was a Little Girl was a part of the DPP's infamous Video Nasty list back in the eighties. As you might expect given the plot line, a lot of the action centres on the sickness of it's main characters; but the best thing about this is the fact that even though the film presents it's murderer right from the beginning; there are still some surprises contained within the plot, and the film also manages to stay away from becoming too convoluted, and while the final twist requires the viewer to stretch their imagination a little; it just about makes sense. The locations used flatter the plot line in that they're morbid and macabre, and while this film is certainly no masterpiece; it's still worth seeing.