DVD Review: The Mad

Billy Zane stars in this tale of burgers gone wrong. It tries to be a horror comedy but a lot of the funny stuff is in the trailer and the laughs promised in the trailer fail to materialize.

Dr. Jason Hunt (Billy Zane) and his girlfriend Monica (Shauna MacDonald) are on vacation and heading for their cabin in the woods. His daughter Amy (Maggie Castle) and her doofus boyfriend Blake (Evan Charles Flock) are along for the ride. As you can imagine in these sorts of movie situations, Amy hates Monica who is possibly her new step-mom and Jason really doesn’t care too much for Blake. They decide to stop at a “Nuevo bumpkin” carnival/amusement park and decide to dine in the café. Seems the joint is getting the beef from a local farm that happens to be using some definitely un-organic chemicals to fatten their stock. Those that eat the tainted burgers turn into zombie-like beasties hell-bent on eating everyone in sight. Soon our vacationers find themselves barricaded in the restaurant with waitress Steve (Jordan Madley) and her cook/step-dad Charlie (Rothaford Gray) and fending off the hungry monsters. The trailer plays up the horror comedy elements that are found in the film and the idea reminded me of Motel Hell (“It takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent Fritters”) but falls short in the end. The problem is that most of the best stuff is shown to you in the trailer and really leaves little else to build on. There is a funny bit where the four people trapped in the café argue about what exactly the incredibly hungry and now mixed up creatures are. Are they zombies, the undead, or just sick? Some other good stuff includes a bit of slapstick with Zane and some zombies/undead/whatevers outside the motel room door. That was amusing but none of the other bits of business really approach it. There are all sorts of ‘80s references since Zane’s character is a child of the time period but I thought that they ran out of steam rather quickly. The cast does what they can but it feels like the script was thrown together at the last minute and doesn’t seem to mesh together. I suppose I was wrong to think of Motel Hell since I kept wishing to be watching that film instead. The Mad tries but it just doesn’t have a climactic chainsaw duel with a crazed farmer in a pig mask. Guess you can’t have it all. The disc is given the “unrated” moniker, but I really didn’t see anything that seemed more than R-rated to me. The Mad is presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.78:1) and enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Special features include a 24-minute “Making of” featurette that has interviews with director John Kalangis, Billy Zane, Maggie Castle, Evan Charles Flock, Rothaford Gray, Jordan Madley, and make-up supervisor Daniel Lee. Next is a 2 minute deleted scene that really doesn’t add anything new to the feature. Finally you have the films theatrical trailer and a collection of trailers for other horror flicks from the same company. The Mad tries but ends up being a maddening mess (I couldn’t resist). It could’ve been more of a horror comedy and might’ve come off better as such, but it just doesn’t seem to come together in the end. The Mad is now available at Amazon. As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.