MADHOUSE

US, 2004, 91 minutes. Colour.
Joshua Leonard, Jordan Ladd, Natasha Lyonne, Lance Henricksen, Dendrie Taylor.
Directed by William Butler.

If an audience is after mayhem in an asylum, this film is probably as good as any other. Produced in 2004, it anticipates the kind of mental twists in much more upmarket films of five years later, Shutter Island and Inception.

The tagline for the film is ‘A young psychiatric intern unearths secrets about the mental health facility in which he works.’ Those who have seen many of the films will realise that some of the secrets that he will turn up are about himself – and that is what happens.

Joshua Leonard plays an earnest young intern who comes to the asylum, interviewing patients as well as making representations to the director, played by Lance Henricksen. He looks slightly odd – getting audience suspicions going right from the beginning. However, with a sleight of hand, the screenplay seems to insinuate that Sara, played by Jordan Ladd, is responsible for the killings.

There is a mysterious character in a cell – which those who are alert might realise is another aspect of the intern’s character, with an explanation that he was a person of multiple personalities and had escaped from the asylum long since, though registered as dead. He returns to wreak his revenge – and he does. Not all the killings make logical sense – but that does not seem to matter much for this kind of film.

Natasha Lyonne plays one of the patients – and there seems to be a ghost of a child haunting the hospital.

The film was written and directed by William Butler, a long-time writer for the National Lampoon films. His tongue-in-cheek approach is evident at times, as well as the titles from some of his films, for example Gingerdead Man 2, Passion of the Crust and Gingerdead Man 3D: Saturday Night Cleaver.

1. The popularity of this kind of madness and mayhem film? The psychological background?

2. The institution itself? The façade? The modern aspects? The light-filled areas? The basement, the dark, the cells for the criminally insane? The musical score?

3. The screenplay, did it work fairly? Logically? Give enough clues for identifying the person responsible?

4. The arrival of Clark? His appearance, beard, hair parted in the middle, glasses, clothes? Looking somewhat eccentric, geekish (as he acknowledged)? The arrival, letting himself in, the patient pretending to be the doctor, the manager rescuing him? His accommodation? His introduction to Doctor Franks? The management of the institution? The need for repairs and better budget? The other members of the staff, Nurse Hendricks and her domination? Doctor Morton and his wandering around the hospital? The manager of the medication? The guard for the criminally insane? The other doctors? The credibility of this institution?

5. The lack of credibility of the institution – contrived for the sake of a horror film? The dark house, the sinister façade? The open spaces – but Clark’s room? The medication centre? Doctor Frank’s office? The dark corridors, the squalor of the cells of the criminally insane? The shadow of the cell for Ben London?

6. Clark and his interviews, the various patients, his talking with Ben, finding out about the past? Being urged to look in front of him to find what was happening? Alice and her outbursts? The young man in the group who finally killed himself? The mad patients? Sexually obsessed? Drake and his sinister attitude, exploiting the female patients? His arrest, escape from jail, suspect?

7. Sara, sympathetic, with Clark? The patients, her explanations? Helping him with the medication, with the reports of the patients’ health? The bond between them? His discovery of her pills, her background of schizophrenia? Her becoming the suspicious character? Sara and her reaction against Clark, the pursuit, his attack, the axe – and her death?

8. Clark, his survival, his understanding of the past, the child ghost and its appearances (and Alice seeing it, and Doctor Frank’s reading books about ghosts)? The various personalities of Clark – and his leaving, his future?

9. The mystery touches? The macabre touches? The violent touches? Themes of madness?