MADMAN is one of many slashers that came out on the heels of HALLOWEEN and FRIDAY THE 13TH, and one of many set at a summer camp, even though it’s not actually set during summer. Because of that, it could get lost in the din of early ‘80s axe-wielding maniac output, but let me tell you, MADMAN goes out of its way to make sure it stands out. The film is full of the most bizarre, eccentric choices you ever did see.
We open with someone singing the story of the maniac Madman Marz around the campfire. Then another character says it’s their turn to tell a scary story, and proceeds to tell the same story, but speaking rather than singing it. There’s a hot tub sex scene that feels deeply surreal no matter how many times you’ve seen it. It's almost an interpretive dance. At one point, a character on the run from Madman Marz makes her way into the lodge and decides to hide, of all places, inside the refrigerator.
The legend goes that if you say the Madman’s name above a whisper, he will reappear and kill you. Naturally, we’re not even five minutes into the film before somebody does exactly that, and at that point we’re off and running.
DAWN OF THE DEAD star Gaylen Ross plays our lead heroine and it is staggering, after watching her play a pregnant professional woman in a slowly decaying relationship at the end of the world in Romero’s zombie epic, to watch her play a young woman at summer camp stressed over a boy a few years later.
I have a particular fascination with this movie because of the lore surrounding Madman Marz. I know that the filmmakers originally intended it to be based on the classic New York legend of Cropsey before THE BURNING beat them to the punch. But I’ve always wondered if like many, many, many New Yorkers any of the crew attended summer camp in Maine, because the story they crafted for the killer is very familiar to me.
Madman Marz murdered his family with an axe and was lynched by angry villagers, who also scarred his face. That’s a very shortened version, but it sounds extremely similar to Maine’s own Captain James Purrington, who also killed his entire family with an axe. And while he was not publicly lynched, he did suffer a wound to the face, because he died by turning that axe on himself. The entire village reacting to the horror does match up, though, because Purrington was buried at a crossroads in fear he would return as a vampire, both because of his suicide and because of the violent nature of his crimes. (And because it was 1806) Given that incident happened and the story lingered in a general region of Maine with several major summer camps, I’ve always wondered if it had any influence on the last minute changes to the character’s story in this film.
Madman Marz is a great villain, regardless. You can’t reason with him and, honestly, you wouldn’t even think to try. This is just an absolute mountain of an undead brute, a campfire story truly brought to life. A great monster, great (and sometimes intense) kills alongside the overall weirdness just make for a mesmerizing viewing experience you simply won’t get from any other movie.