I, Madman
directed by Tibor Takacs
directed by Tibor Takacs
This horror movie is visually and thematically a homage to old noir films and pulp detective/adventure stories that usually had an endangered pretty woman, a protective two-fisted hero, and some creepy psycho villain.
Although this 1989 movie was made when standards on horror film depictions of sex and violence were relaxing, this film remained faithful to its influences in that more is implied than is shown.
I didn't think anything shown or implied was gratuitous. I like horror movies; it takes a lot for me to think that something is gratuitous. Anyhow I never thought that the director was trying to hide a bad story with cleavage shots or buckets of blood.
The best stories are immersive. The reader is transported to that reality. For some young or sensitive souls this may be too much. They might have nightmares. Virginia Clayton (Jenny Wright) is such a sensitive soul.
A used bookstore clerk, Virginia likes nothing more than curling up in her bed with a good pulp horror novel. She's found one by the mysterious author Malcolm Brand who disappeared years ago. Brand writes weird stories with twist endings.
Virginia's (not quite live-in) boyfriend, young solicitous homicide detective Richard (Clayton Rohner), dislikes his girlfriend's choice of reading material because he believes it upsets her and almost as importantly it interferes with what he considers to be more important bedroom activities.
Virginia vainly searches for Brand's out of print second novel, I, Madman, which concerns a mad disfigured doctor. This doctor is a serial killer who seeks to win an actress's love by killing people and using their body parts to rebuild his face.
Virginia can't find the book. It later appears at Virginia's apartment door. Virginia doesn't know how. She's just happy to read it. But Virginia has nightmares and waking dreams about the mad doctor. She thinks that maybe Malcolm Brand (Randall William Cook) isn't dead. Maybe this book isn't fiction.
Virginia hears Brand talking to her. Richard worries about Virginia's sanity. Virginia witnesses and predicts murders detailed in Brand's book. But saying that a fictional character committed a murder to impress your girlfriend isn't something Richard can tell his bosses.
This was a decent Saturday afternoon type movie with thrills and chills without too much gore. Cook would later win awards for his special effects work in the Lord of The Rings trilogy. You might recall Wright from Near Dark and The World According to Garp.
