jenny wright

I Madman (1989)

Virginia Clayton (Jenny Wright) is an aspiring actress who works at a used bookstore. She likes horror novels, and one night she scares herself while reading an obscure book by the deceased author Malcolm Brand. She calls her detective boyfriend, Richard (Clayton Rohner), over to comfort her and have a little sexy time. While the book did scare her, she liked it and attempts to find the only other book Brand wrote, I Madman. She has no luck finding it for herself, but one night it shows up on her doorstep.

The book is about a crazed man who decides the best way to express his passion for the woman he loves is to cut off his ears, nose, and lips. When she rejects him, he begins murdering people to get those body parts back. His first victim is an actress whom he stalks, murders, and cuts her hair off.

Back in reality, a woman in Virginia’s acting class has been brutally murdered; her hair was cut off. Virginia becomes obsessed with the book and believes the killer to be its author. He has come back to life and is enacting the murders he wrote about. She begins seeing him on the street. She thinks he believes she is the girl from the book that he was obsessed with.

Meanwhile, more folks are getting killed and facially mutilated just like in the book. When she witnesses one murder that happens across the street from her apartment, she calls the police. She tells her boyfriend everything. At first, they are excited to have a witness, but when she starts talking about characters jumping out of a book, they think she’s crazy. The film plays it close to the vest for a while as to whether or not she is crazy, or if this madman has come to life.

I’ve watched quite a few dumb horror movies lately. Movies that felt like the filmmakers were searching for a quick buck rather than any sort of artistic vision. Movies that give the audience some gore and boobs and call it a day. That might have caused me to rate this one a little higher than it perhaps deserves. I really appreciated that I, Madman was actually trying to make an interesting movie. It put in an effort.

I do, genuinely, think it is a good movie. Director Tibor Takács, fresh off making his cult classic The Gate, infuses the film with a wonderful sense of dread. We spend a lot of time in Virginia’s (really quite spacious) apartment, lit with nothing but lamps, giving it a cavernous feel full of shadows. He blends fiction with reality, creating an eerie dreamscape. Jenny Wright is quite good as Virginia, giving her an innocent quality that makes her feel quite vulnerable.

It isn’t a perfect film. The ending is a little silly, and Takács falls back on some of the special effects he used in The Gate. But I came to this knowing absolutely nothing about it, and I came away more than pleasantly surprised.

near dark

A couple of young guys are hanging out one evening on a sidewalk. They spy a pretty woman standing alone. One of the guys, Caleb (Adrian Pasdar) walks over to her. Or rather he struts. He’s full of confidence. He asks the girl her name – it’s Mae (Jenny Wright). He asks if she’s got a boyfriend. She says she needs a ride home.

In his truck, he is full of flirt. He asks her to slide over. He puts his arm around her. She asks him to stop so they can look at the night. He tries to kiss her, but she pulls away. Later they stop again. He literally lassos her and tries to kiss her again. She sees the dawn coming and says she has to get home. Now. He says he won’t take her unless she kisses him.

The beginning of Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark begins with a push and pull of the most interesting power dynamics. It is a situation most women will recognize, I imagine. A man offers kindness to a woman, but the wants something in return, and he gets more and more demanding if not immediately satisfied. But we know something poor old Caleb doesn’t – Mae is a vampire and she can bite him anytime she wants. She does exactly that when he tries to stop her from returning to her home before daylight.

When he turns, she introduces him to her band of fiends which includes Lance Henriksen as the defacto leader who has been around since the Civil War, Jennette Goldstein, Joshua John Miller who plays a vampire who was turned when he was just a kid and Bill Paxton whose channeling his Aliens character’s energy, but without the fear and a whole lot of nutso bravado. If you are paying attention you’ll notice that half the cast was also in James Cameron’s Aliens. He was dating Bigelow at the time and basically told her his cast would be perfect for her film and she agreed. So do I.

It is a western take on the vampire story and it is rather glorious. Shot in parts of Texas and Oklahoma, Bigelow fills the screen with this wideshots of beautiful, desolate landscapes. There are bar brawls and shoot-outs. The violence is stylish and brutal. The story – which winds up being about Caleb’s reluctance to take human life – is a bit too familiar, but I love the way it is told. And Paxton is bloody fantastic.