Wonderful character development!

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

The trailer made this flick look like fun - it seemed like I had stumbled on some forgotten 80s horror gem - but what a piece of crap it turned out to be! It sucks on so many levels, that while watching the movie, I was already looking forward to reading a couple of funny reviews on IMDb completely trashing it. However, even this turned out to be too much to ask.Who was the intended audience? The arty farty crowd will probably find it too stupid, while the average horror fans will be bored out of their minds by the pretentious arty crap and the complete lack of nudity and real gore. Perhaps it was for lonely women, who may identify with the annoying bookworm girl? Twilight for housewives? The script is very, very dumb, yet it seems to takes itself quite seriously... infuriating! This was made in 1989, before the advent of hipsters, but it pisses me off in a way that only hipsters tend to. Perhaps they will like this flick then. It has this kind of "ironic" half arsed pussy vibe over it, and for sure they will love the stop motion clay crap that shows up in the final scene to magically save the helpless bookworm girl and her pussy ass boyfriend. That's right, the flick ends with a shot of the stupid girl staring satisfied and romantically out of the window that the villain and the clay stop motion crap just crashed out of minutes before she was about to be killed.

I, Madman (1989)** (out of 4) Virginia (Jenny Wright) is a bookworm who works in an antique bookstore. She reads a bizarre story from a not so famous author and after that she tries tracking down his rarer second book. The book ends up at her doorstep and after reading it she believes someone from the book is trying to kill her.I, MADMAD has some really, really interesting ideas but sadly the execution isn't all that great and we're left with your typical 80's slasher. As the film got started I became rather nervous because there's really nothing less scary than dream sequences. What could be worse is that this film shows us our lead character re-enacting what she is reading and this adds up to even less scary scenes. These scenes are just her imagination so you know there's not a real threat going on.As the film moves along it doesn't get much better because the interesting aspect pretty much gets put to the side and instead we're treated to a bland slasher. The main killer isn't all that interesting and the kill scenes are all rather lame and not very creative. I'm not sure if the budget didn't allow for better effects or if the MPAA cut into the film but either way they don't work.The one saving grace is Wright who is quite charming and fun in her role. She's certainly the best thing in the picture but it's too bad she didn't have more to work with.

I, Madman is a rather odd little film. The story straddles a line somewhere between art and absolute rubbish, as we have the idea of fiction and reality coming together; but the fiction side of the story is far from art, as we follow a psychopath who has seen fit to tear his own face off. Furthermore, the production values are really good considering the sort of film; yet it doesn't do it any favours, as it always feels like a high quality B-movie, and films like this do better with an appropriate style to them. The plot is pure hokum and unlikely to be taken seriously by anyone. We follow Virginia; a young woman who works at a used book store. She's into horror literature, and is pleased with herself one day when she happens across a certain book. She soon wants to read the author's only other work, and is surprised when it ends up on her doorstep. She begins to read the novel entitled 'I, Madman' - a macabre tale about a man who ravages his own face in the hope of getting a girl to like him (...). However, the horror of the book becomes more real when Virginia begins to see the title character murdering people for real...Director Tibor Takács made the silly horror flick 'The Gate' two years prior to this film; and if you asked me he should have stuck to films like that. It's not that I, Madman is essentially not fun; but the way it comes together doesn't feel very fluid or logical. The acting is decent, however, with Near Dark's Jenny Wright taking the lead role and doing well with it, while supporting cast members provide decent feedback. The central villain is a fairly clichéd creation, as similar ideas of deformed maniacs killing people have been used many times before. The special effects aren't too bad for most of the film, and it's nice to see a few gory sequences in any horror film. At the end, however, a sub-plot involving a half man, half jackal comes into play; and we get treated to some spectacularly awful stop motion effects, and it brings the film crashing down on it's head as any credibility it has built up so far is lost. Still, most of the film isn't too bad; and while there are a lot of inconsistencies and unlikely character choices - I, Madman is worth seeing if only to marvel at how bizarre it is.

The setup here is a typical fold. An actress has a day job in a book store. She reads horror books and imagines herself in them. One day, she comes across an author who, when writing, had the story and real life merge. In reading the books, they "come alive."Her actor and book friends (plus a pianist) are murdered to provide parts of the writers face. This is such a clever idea that it attracted me to dig out this old project. The writer even understood the redhead thing: the first murder is to get the red hair of an actress we see playing Desdemona. Natch, the boyfriend is a police detective assigned to the case.What we see is simply turning the crank, but when do poor production values bother kids? The idea is the thing. It isn't a folded gialli, instead a dim reference. But its better at root than "Stay Alive," a similarly folded kiddiething with which I saw this.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.