I shouldn’t be too surprised this was produced and directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis. Released only two years after dropping the strangest film in existence,, the Egyptian-born Italian B horror film producer, future Cannon Films CEO and occasional film writer-director was known for firing directors mid-production before taking over the project himself. Such was the case with, the film which jumpstarted James Cameron’s career, and this former Italian-American Video Nasty from the early 80s known as…or is it? Oh what the Hell, let’s just settle on the third title for this new Arrow Video blu-ray release:

A kind of smorgasbord of Italian slasher stylized giallo, evil twin sister revenge thriller, and a whole lot of Riz Ortolani power, Madhouse echoes the sensibilities of Argento and Fulci’s brand of artfully rendered exploitation horror which unfortunately like The Visitor throws just enough extraneous threads in to tip it over into silliness. It’s fun but all over the map and I doubt Assonitis intended it to be tongue in cheek. Anyway, a rare Italian production to be filmed in America in Savannah, Georgia in the supposedly haunted Kehoe house, Madhouse concerns schoolteacher for deaf children Julia Sullivan (Trish Everly in her only film role) whose violent past with her evil sister Mary comes back to haunt her as friends and family start turning up dead.