I, Madman (1989) Movie Review
Written by: ML
Edited by: Grave Reviews Staff
Film Information
Director: Tibor Takacs
Producers: Rafael Eisenman
Writers: David Chaskin
Date Released: October 13, 1989
Cast:
Jenny Wright as Virginia
Clayton Rohner as Richard
Randall William Cook as Dr. Alan Kessler/ Malcolm Brand
Stephanie Hodge as Mona
Michelle Jordan as Colette
Vance Valencia as Sgt. Navarro
Rating = 1.5/5 Graves
***May contain some spoilers***
Synopsis
The story is about a young woman, Virginia, who works at a bookstore and reads a certain book written by Malcolm Brand. It’s about a mad scientist who falls in love with an actress but the actress doesn’t like him for his gruesome appearance. So the madman kills victims and takes a part of their face to make it his own. While Virginia reads certain parts of the book, the scenes become real and the madman thinks she is the actress. This leads to people close to her getting killed.
Gore Factor
The only gruesome parts of the movie involve the madman killing his victims and cutting off a part of their faces. There was an early jump scare where the madman showed off his almost skeletal face. Also, the appearance of a creature in the opening scene and at the end where it got sliced in half but was still alive was a bit unsettling.
The Grave Review
The only good thing about this movie is the plot. Though it might not be new, the idea of a book coming to life is interesting. Not to mention the book being nonfiction and it’s actually the story of the author.
The acting is bland and annoying. Jenny Wright failed to execute a terrified woman every time the madman is near or when she witnesses the killings. She lacks facial expressions in the entire movie and it made it less scary. The audiences might fail to relate to her terror because of this.
There were even parts where she deliberately did things differently. There was a scene where the cat jumped on the desk and it took her a while to intentionally spill her drink. Another scene was when she was escaping the madman on the stairs. She intentionally pushed the tower of books on the stairs which caused an avalanche. She could’ve just run up the stairs normally without having to flail her hands. Her blank emotions did not align with her actions, especially during the parts where she rants about the madman.
The ending is also bad in the sense that it was the creature that killed the madman while Virginia was just reading aloud. The madman and the creature turning to book pages did not mean anything because the entire story lacked some back story and explanations. The only turning point was the scene with the publisher telling the history of the books and the truth about the author.
Overall, this movie is watchable only if you can stand annoying acting and strange visual effects.
For the foregoing reasons, Grave Reviews give I, Madman (1989) one and a half graves out of five graves.
Do you agree with our review? Comment below.
Join the Conversation