Directed by James Clark in 1974, this British/American co-production put together by Amicus and American International Pictures follows a man named Paul Toombes (Vincent Price in the last film he'd make for AIP). An actor by trade, Toombes is popular among horror fans for playing a character called Dr. Death in a popular series of horror movies. He's engaged to a woman named Ellen Mason (Julie Crosthwaite) but after finding out at a party he's attended with her that she's been involved with adult films, he throws a fit and storms out on her. Shortly after, feeling remorseful, he heads back to try and talk to her but find that she has been decapitated.

Understandably shaken by what has happened, Toombes has a breakdown and leaves the acting business. The years pass and eventually he's offered the chance to travel from America to the United Kingdom to reprise his most famous role for a new television series. He accepts the offer and soon meets Oliver Quayle (Robert Quarry), the show's producer who he quickly comes to dislike when he forces his girlfriend, Carol Clayton (Jennie Lee Wright), into the series to act as Dr. Death's assistant. Regardless, Toombes tries to make the best of things and can at least enjoy reuniting with his old friend Herbert Flay (Peter Cushing), brought on board to write the series.

Things take a quick turn for the worse, however, once production starts. See, people involved with the series soon start turning up dead, each one a victim of a grisly murder. The culprit? Someone running about in a Dr. Death outfit, someone who looks suspiciously like Paul Toombes…

Squaring Price and Quarry against each other in the movie was a bit of a stroke of genius, as Quarry was at one time considered to be the actor who would replace Price as AIP's reigning king of horror. You definitely do get the impression during their shared screen time that they don't like one another, and it gives some of those scenes a fairly interesting sense of cattiness. This gives the story a bit more punch than it might have otherwise but even without that added element of potential real life drama the story is well told. Some dark humor is worked into the film (look for an ‘appearance' from Count Yorga himself!) and the murder set pieces are done well. If the film isn't ultra-stylish or all that flashy in terms of Clark's direction, it is at least well put together, quite decent in its pace and smart enough to leave the focus on the film's three leading men, each one an important part of horror movie history even at this point in their careers.

In terms of those leading men, each one is featured here in fine form. Quarry plays his smug, arrogant and irritating character quite well. He's got a pretty great screen presence and he uses it to his advantage in the picture. Of course, Cushing comes across as the gentleman that by all accounts he was in real life and seeing him interact with the others in this film is a lot of fun. He's maybe a little underwritten when compared to Quarry or Price but he does an absolutely wonderful job with the material. Price, however, tends to steal the show. He wasn't a young man at this point in his career and he's got a weathered, almost angry look about him for much of the film that suits the character perfectly. As his character starts to question what is real and what is not and ponder what exactly he himself is responsible for, Price delivers an appropriately complex, layered and fascinating performance. There are those who see anything the man was affiliated with as hammy, but pay attention to the way that the man uses his facial expressions and his body language here. He's definitely dramatic and occasionally more than a little over the top but he shows a solid commitment to the part he's been chosen to play and he's great in the lead role.

Video:

Madhouse arrives on Blu-ray in a very nice looking AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed at 1.85.1 widescreen. Compared to the previous non-anamorphic DVD release that MGM gave the movie years back, this is quite impressive. Black levels look considerably deeper than they have in the past but not at the expense of shadow detail. The picture is free of crush and compression artifacts while affording the image considerably better, brighter and bolder color reproduction. Skin tones look very nice and detail is, with a few shots excepted, typically very strong and at times surprisingly crisp. There's a tiny bit of print damage here and there but it's nothing too serious while the natural grain structure remains intact, indicating that no overzealous noise reduction has been used here.