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Madhouse (2004)

DVD Cover (Lions Gate)
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Overall Rating 54%
Overall Rating
Ranked #5,162
...out of 20,324 movies
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Psychiatric intern Clark Stevens comes to Cunningham Hall, a mental-health facility administrated by Dr. Franks, for a training period before his graduation from medical school. He gets close to resident Sara and to Ben London, a dangerous patient lodged in cell 44 in the clinic's basement. He becomes intrigued with a boy who seems to be a ghost, then discovers that the patients receive no real medication. A further investigation shows hidden dark secrets in the clinic. --IMDb
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Review by Chad
Added: April 25, 2005
Clark (Joshua Leonard) is an intern who has decided to do some work at the Cunningham Mental Hospital in order to earn some extra credit. Upon arriving at the hospital, he notices that the place is very loosely run... patients run amok, nurses and other interns abuse the patients, and some of the patients receive the wrong medication for their various problems. Before even starting his work, he takes up his grievances with the man in charge, Dr. Franks (Lance Henriksen), but Franks pretty much brushes his questions aside and basically tells him to quit being such a whiny bitch. Clark learns how things run around here quite quickly from this conversation, but before leaving Franks' office, he notices all sorts of books dealing with the paranormal and hauntings. Clark finds this to be a bit odd, but carries on with the tour of the building and the introductions to the other staff members. He meets up with Nurse Hendricks (Dendrie Taylor), a cruel lady who makes a habit out of zapping patients with her stun-gun, and he also meets up with Sara (Jordan Ladd), a lady that he quickly takes a liking to and soon starts to have a love affair with. Things start to get a bit crazy in the hospital, however, when Nurse Hendricks turns up dead as a result of being electrocuted, and things get even more bizarre when Clark begins seeing the ghost of a little boy running around... the same ghost that patient Alice (Natasha Lyonne) has reported seeing. When the body count really starts to rise, Clark and Sara must find out who is responsible and why.

In 1999, movie-goers flocked to see "The Sixth Sense", a movie that featured a huge twist of an ending. Ever since then, it has almost become a rule that horror / thriller movies must feature some sort of twist ending. This film is no exception to the rule, and carries out the tradition to the letter. We have the typical setup here - four or five characters (including the ghosts that haunt the place) that we are led to believe could be the murderer, with each one having ample motive to be the man or woman responsible. Then, when the grand finale rolls around, we learn what's really going on here, as everything is revealed in one shocking scene. Normally, these twist endings work out in one of two ways - they succeed, delivering a shocking end that nobody saw coming, and this ending wraps the film up quite nicely. Then, there's the films that have the twist ending that is either painfully obvious by the midway point of the film, or feature a twist that, while unexpected, makes no sense in the grand scheme of things and seems to have been simply tacked on in order to meet the "twist ending" requirement of today's horror. Madhouse falls into the latter category. As the movie rolls along and you try to pick out who the red herring's are and who (or what) is actually responsible for the murders, I'm fairly sure that not too many people would correctly guess the identity of the person behind the massacre. However, when all is revealed, it's one huge clusterfuck of an explanation... so many questions are brought up as a result of the revelation, so many holes in the plot are uncovered, and so much time has been wasted on things that wound up having zero relevance to the film at hand. Yeah, the ending is a shock, but that doesn't mean it finished off the film in a satisfying fashion.

That's not to say that the events that transpire prior to the finale are all bad, however... we have an interesting storyline here with numerous suspects in regards to the murders. Each character and each ghostly occurrence is nicely set up, and all of the suspects seemed highly likely to be responsible. There's some nice dialog to further the confusion of who's responsible, some minor twists to keep it interesting, and a look at some truly insane patients in what is known as "The Madhouse" (the place where the worst patients are kept locked up). We're even treated to some excellent gore effects, with the by-a-long-shot highlight being Nurse Hendricks strapped to a chair and electrocuted so much that she bites off her own tongue as a result of the electrical currents flowing through her body. There's a few others that are shown that are also quite good, and each are full of blood and gore. We even get some above-average performances from the cast involved. Featured in the movie are two fairly known names in Hollywood - Natasha Lyonne and Lance Henriksen. Natasha winds up with about three short scenes throughout the whole movie, while Lance clocks in with five or six. Both parties were acceptable in their roles, but it's fairly obvious that the real work load of the film went to the not quite so well known actors Joshua Leonard (Clark) and Jordan Ladd (Sara). Both of these do a decent enough job with their roles, though Joshua does get bitten by the over-acting bug in more than a few scenes.

In conclusion, we have a movie that has a lot of good going for it (though to be fair, you'll recognize a lot of ideas from other films that this one ripped off). However, all of this excellent build up is ruined when the twist is revealed. This one would be worth a rental if you're a fan of the ghostly-horror-thrillers genre that has sprung up in recent years, though it's far from being one of the better ones. 6/10.
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