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18 out of 22 people found the following review useful:
More like mansion of weirdness!, 24 July 2005

Author: NateManD from Bloomsburg PA

"The Mansion of Madness" is a long forgotten surreal horror comedy from directer Juan Lopez Moctezuma. Most notorious for "Alucarda". "Mansion of Madness" contains a couple cast members from "El Topo" including cinematographer Rafiel Corkidi. The movie is loosely based on a short story from Edgar Allan Poe. The plot concerns a weird and deranged insane asylum where the patients take over and make up their own rules. Doctors out of the way! There's rooms full of crazy lunatics including people who act like chickens. Actor Claudio Brook is in charge of the madness. Fans of Jodorosky, Arrabal, Fellini and Ken Russel will definitely find this film enjoyable. It's also known as "Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon". Not to worry, there's more surreal art than torture in this flick. So why not check in, to the mansion of madness?

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21 out of 29 people found the following review useful:
Strangely fascinating trash!, 4 February 2005

Author: Coventry from the Draconian Swamp of Unholy Souls

Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon (the more appealing a.k.a of this film) surely is one of the most bizarre films I ever saw. But then again, it qualifies as Mexican exploitation and you never know what to expect from these guys… I would love to summarize the plot a little but that's nearly impossible considering this is an incoherent series of absurdity, sleaze and semi-psychedelic stuff. The closest I can get is describing how the story takes place in a French asylum hidden in the woods, where doctor Tarr and professor Feather feast their most perverted barbarities on the poor and helpless patients…and yet they like it! My personal favorite is a guy – referred to as Mr. Chicken – who lives in a pen, alongside the other poultry. You should see how happy he is!! The screenplay is supposed to be adapted from an Edgar Allen Poe story but, even though I haven't read it, I suspect that the premise is replenished with many elements from the makers' own wicked imagination. As often the case with this type of cheap exploitation films, it features a surprisingly stylish cinematography and many addictive elements. Especially the mesmerizing opening sequence, with its wonderful blaze of colors, immediately draws your attention. The use of silly music is hilarious and you can only feel sympathy for the actor while they're attempting to rattle their exaggeratedly complex dialogues. This is the kind of cinema that normal human beings refer to as crap and complete rubbish. Only the people with a macabre sense of humor love it and regret that there aren't more films like this to find. I, for one, am proud to have it in my cult-collection.

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12 out of 16 people found the following review useful:
horror meets strange European art cinema, should have been a classic, 10 July 2003
Author: horrorbargainbin (warrenraccoon@yahoo.com) from hollywood, CA

Not as much a horror movie as the (real cool) Magnum video case lets on, it can be pretty scary and disturbing. Kind of like Gilliam's Baron Munchausen crossed with Fellini Satyricon crossed with any movie where the inmates run the asylum. I'd say it had a pretty high budget and a large cast. I figured it would be some Al Adamson type of film in a cardboard dungeon. Well the atmosphere is great and the shots are cool and very European. Based on a Poe story so the concepts and dialogue are pretty memorable. There are really creative sets and props I never would expect to see. I wonder why more people have not heard of it?

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14 out of 20 people found the following review useful:
Disappointing, 9 January 2007

Author: Bryce David

I've waited a long time to see DR TARR'S TORTURE DUNGEON and after I watched it, I was really disappointed by it. It's not the Baroque film I expected it to be. The trailer (which I saw on a Something Weird DVD) is much better than the entire film, which is remarkably forgettable. There are almost no stand out scenes in it and the look and feel is interesting but it doesn't even come close to other Baroque styled movies out there, from Fellini or Jodorowsky. The characters are dull and there's almost nothing dramatic going on, even though we see rape, crucifixion, insanity, etc.

The main problem with DR TARR'S TORTURE DUNGEON was the fact that it was a talk-a-thon more than anything else. It was almost like watching a book. I just wanted the film to have moments of silence or mood or something, instead we see/listen to the main characters chit-chat endlessly about dull stuff.

A missed opportunity.

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4 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
A Horror Film With Maniacs, Torture, And Dancing Chickens, 31 August 2008

Author: poefan from United States

Dr Tarr's Torture Dungeon is about a journalist who travels to an insane asylum to write about a new technique they use with their patients. However, the journalist soon finds out that things are not what they seem to be, and the asylum is being run by the patients, and the doctors are in cages. First of all, some parts of the film are just plain boring and just makes you want to fall asleep, and the interesting parts are interesting for all the wrong reasons(A guy who thinks he's a chicken, for instance). I have to admit that the story is actually pretty good, but the film itself bombs. The music of the film is really odd and like something you would hear in some insane comedy, and yes, there is a scene involving dancing chicken men, which pretty much made me want to shut off the screen. Watch this film at your own risk!

Rated: R for Violence and Nudity.

Grade: F

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6 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
A Surrealistic horror film that is mostly talk, talk, talk!, 23 June 2007

Author: planktonrules from Bradenton, Florida

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

A stupid rich guy circa about 1800 wants to visit a nearby mental asylum to see how a famous doctor cares for his patients. Despite an initially hostile response, he is soon cordially invited in and given a tour by the good doctor. And, as the doctor shows him about, he talks and talks and talks!!! And as he talks, loonies run amok here and there doing nothing especially productive. While there is SOME action here and there (and some of it quite disturbing), it's amazing how dull and cerebral the whole thing is--lacking life and energy, which is odd for a horror flick. Even a guy who thinks he's a chicken and dresses like one becomes rather tiresome. The further this tour takes the guest, the more disturbing it becomes until ultimately you realize that the inmates have taken over the hospital and are torturing their keepers. Yet again, despite this twist, the film is amazingly lifeless in many places--particularly when it moves very slowly as a bizarre ceremony is taking place or people are just wandering about the set. Only when the workers from the asylum found in a prison cell, starving, does the film have any real impact. Considering this plot, it sure is hard to imagine making it boring, but the people who made this cheap exploitational film have! Now with the same plot and competent writing, acting and direction, this COULD have been an interesting and worthwhile film.

You know, now that I think about it, this was the plot of one of the episodes of the original "Star Trek" TV show! You know, the one with "Lord Garth--Master of the Universe" and Kirk and Spock are held prisoner by this madman and his crazed followers.

A final note: The film has quite a bit of nudity here and there and includes a rape scene, so be forewarned--it's not for kids. In fact, considering how worthless the film is, it isn't for anyone! However, with the version included in the "50 Movie Pack--Chilling Classics", the print is so incredibly bad that it's hard to see all this flesh due to the print being so very dark.

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10 out of 17 people found the following review useful:
An excellent Eurotrash Poe adaptation., 26 January 2001

Author: (roganmarshall@juno.com)

Among the lesser known Poe stories, a personal favorite, for me, has always been "The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Feather," which uses role reversals in a country asylum as a leaping-off point for pseudo-comedic, proto-surreal flights of fancy. This film adaptation uses a more-or-less faithful adaptation as the framework for Eurotrash erotic horror, with results that come off like what you might get if someone like Rollin or Franco directed "King of Hearts." Within these parameters, this movie is perfectly self-assured, and if it sounds like something you might be interested in seeing, you are, and you'll love it.

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2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Visitors to an asylum, 18 April 2011

Author: bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York

The Mansion Of Madness is a Mexican production of an American story with a French location. It's based on an Edgar Allan Poe short story The Torture Garden Of Dr. Tarr and if not top rate at least it's interesting.

Mexican star Claudio Brook plays the infamous Dr. Tarr who is actually both a master criminal and has a personality that has stepped over the line. He led a revolt of inmates who have taken over the asylum from the real staff. As the asylum is deep in the Ardennes Forest in France the chances of visitors are slim to none. And when visitors do come they get the treatment that the visitors in this story get.

One thing you've got to love about these films is that it gives players a chance to overact outrageously and keep within character. The Mansion Of Madness has to be among the top ten films with overacting as the norm.

Watching this film also made me realize where the plot of a certain Star Trek episode in which Steve Ihnat played a Dr. Tarr like character who took over a futuristic prison came from.

I think fans of Edgar Allan Poe will like this production.

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3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Not exactly torture, 18 February 2010

Author: Zeegrade from Doomed Theater of Despair

I kinda like this bizarre Mexican flick which was a mix of "Hearts of Darkness" and "The Island of Dr. Moreau". Anyone familiar with these types of movies made south of the border in the seventies know that coherent plots are not to be expected. Gaston LeBlanc has come to witness the revolutionary treatments of Dr. Maillard in his spacious sanitarium. When he is introduced to the Doctor and his lovely niece Eugenie he is taken on a tour which begin an array of odd encounters with the patients who seem to roam free. As Gaston beholds the increasingly eccentric methods of Maillard's "soothing system" he begins to question the mental stability of the doctor. Chicken Man would of had me running out the front door long ago but I guess that's just me. After one of the Doctor's religious ceremonies involving Eugenie almost comes to a murderous end if not for Gaston's intervention she is taken away for punishment which for what he's witness can be just about anything. Gaston saves Eugenie, whom he has fallen for, and she tells him that Maillard is actually an escaped convict named Fragonard who led a revolt by the inmates imprisoning the real Dr. Maillard and his staff. With Fragonard's system for controlling anyone he sets out for, what else, world domination!

I can see how "Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon" can turn people off. If you are expecting a gory exploitation/torture horror film you will be sadly disappointed. This is actually more of a comedy than anything as the sheer lunacy of some of the scenes inspire some serious laughs. Claudio Brook as Maillard/Fragonard is especially entertaining as his rantings and constant cackling convinced me that nobody is more crazy in this asylum than him. It does have some slow moments when the dialogue gets a little to wordy for me but the occasional pair of naked breasts made up for that. I don't know what director Juan Lopez Moctezuma's fascination with bird people was but he definitely had an ample amount in this movie. Not everyone's cup of tea but nonetheless a movie that kept me entertained for most of its 82 minute run time which is a lot more than I can say for most of the other titles in this "Chilling Classics" collection. Give it a shot.

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1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Madness minus mayhem makes a mediocre movie, 16 January 2011

Author: melvelvit-1 from NYC suburbs

A nineteenth-century NYC journalist gets more than he bargained for when he travels to a madhouse in a remote region of France to get the scoop on Dr. Maillard's "soothing system" for treating insanity...

Mexican cult director Juan López Moctezuma's avant-garde adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's "The System Of Doctor Tarr & Professor Fether" is closer to comedy than horror and drive-in patrons demanded their money back when it was released on that circuit as DR. TARR'S TORTURE DUNGEON. It's a very well-made movie that's visually reminiscent of Fellini and Bunuel but although there's a bit of Ken Russell's THE DEVILS to it, too, an opportunity to terrify was lost once the slapstick shenanigans were introduced. The premise is still spooky, however, and the setting and era are nicely realized but it's decidedly bloodless and although foreign film aficionados may enjoy it, the frightening situation needed murder (and gore, if possible) to make it work. Plot lines featuring unsuspecting visitors to insane asylums that have just had a violent coup have thrilled audiences ever since the 70s in movies like ASYLUM, DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT, and SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT (with it's sepia-toned flashbacks of a madhouse massacre featuring Warhol superstars Ondine & Candy Darling) and 60s flicks like SHOCK CORRIDOR, SHOCK TREATMENT and BRAINSTORM are close kin. I'm sorry MANSION OF MADNESS didn't deliver in that regard but if there's any more movies out there with the same scenario, please let me know.

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