madness

It takes skill to play a convincing psycho. Anthony Perkins was immortalized for it Anthony Hopkins won an Academy Award for it. Then there’s Joe Dallesandro, aka “Little Joe” from Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side. The ex-Andy Warhol factory superstar and crotch model for the Rolling Stones is essentially a slab of beef with basic vocabulary skills. And Madness (1980), an Italian import directed by crime-genre specialist Fernando Di Leo, matches him in terms of presenting crude, raw, unshaped exploitation material.

In fact, Madness is so sparse in terms of dialogue, camera angles and visual flourishes that it could have been produced in the Warhol factory. With a steamrolling late ‘70s rock score (complete with jazz flute solos) laid over top of every scene, there’s certainly an effort to make the film seem exciting. But even by exploitation standards, Madness seems desperate.

Escaped thief and murderer Joe Brezy returns to an isolated cabin in the countryside to recover his hidden loot, only to find it occupied by a trio of vacationers. Paola (Lorraine De Selle) is a tramp who’s sleeping with her sister’s husband right under her own roof. Brezy takes advantage of that knowledge (and Paola’s trampy nature) to turn the trio against each other.

It sounds much more cerebral than it actually is. Madness is mostly a partner swap, stretching out the minutes between sex scenes to hit an acceptable running time. De Selle (who would star in the similar but superior House on the Edge of the Park that same year) is the only cast member who’s fun to watch. Her blatant attempts at seduction and constant camera vamping are a real treat. When you get right down to it, there’s a brutal simplicity at work that could be Di Leo experimenting with the genre in a way we just don’t understand.

Nah.

Even the extensive liner notes on Raro Video’s DVD release don’t support that theory. But you do get a nice digitally restored transfer of a movie that’s never had a US release on home video. Consider Madness advanced Italian exploitation viewing for those who think they’ve seen it all before.