Sorry, this movie sucks

Best movie ever!

A Major Disappointment

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

In his private clinic Dr Tremayne (Donald Pleasance) tells his old friend Nicholas (Jack Hawkins) about four cases of mental aberration he has sold before reporting his findings to the authorities.A six year old boy, Paul (Russell Lewis), invents an imaginary friend, a tiger, in order to deal with the stress of living with his rowing parents, Fay (Georgia Brown) and Sam (Donald Houston). When they confront him about it it turns out that his imaginary friend is only too real and mauls them to death.An antiques dealer, Timothy (Peter McEnery), under the influence of an old painting with supernatural powers, is transported back to Victorian times where he meets his girlfriend's double.Brian (Michael Jayston) discovers a weird, human shaped tree called Mel, which he takes home and his wife, Bella (Joan Collins), gets jealous when he spends more time with it than her. She attempts to destroy Mel, but it attacks and kills her. After burying his wife in the woods,Brian gets into bed with Mel.An American literary agent, Auriol Pagent (Kim Novak), and her young daughter Ginny (Mary Tamm) unwittingly fall victim to ancient rituals and human sacrifice on a South Seas island.When Tremayne has finished revealing his research to Nicholas, his old friend dismisses him insane and has the wardens drag him off to the asylum. But, Nicholas, believing there to be no danger enters the room of the young Paul and is attacked by - yes, you've guessed it! - that tiger.No, not one of the Amicus portmanteau horror films that were successful throughout the sixties and early seventies despite a star cast and director Freddie Francis at the helm. It is a World Film Services production, the studio responsible for The Creeping Flesh who gave Francis the go ahead to make this - a personal project for the filmmaker - as they were impressed with his work on that film. Originally titled simply Witness Madness, it was scripted by the actress Jennifer Jayne who had appeared in Francis' Hammer psycho-thriller Hysteria and his Amicus compendium chiller Dr Terror's House Of Horrors. She would also go on to script the director's disastrous rock-horror musical Son Of Dracula, which starred Harry Nillson and Ringo Star as Merlin the Magician. Witness Madness was not originally meant to be a horror film but, on its completion, the studio insisted it should be and the director was forced to go and "horrify" it much to his dismay. Tales was added to the title in a bid to capitalize on the recent success of Francis' Tales From The Crypt. In the early 70's, Francis had a run of bad movies - The Creeping Flesh and Tales From The Crypt being the only exceptions - and they continued after this one with Craze and the aforementioned Son Of Dracula. These experiences would see Francis give up directing and return to working as a Cinematographer winning his second Oscar for Glory in 1989 and his last film would be The Straight Story in 1999.Three out of the four stories here are utterly dismal; unworthy of the stellar cast involved and directed by Francis with much more style than they deserved. In particular, the spectacle of Joan Collins getting worked up and jealous over her on screen husband Michael Jayston's infatuation with a tree is just plain ridiculous for words and you will not be able to help yourself but laugh all the way through it. The forth story, however, starring Kim Novak (she replaced Rita Hayworth just a short time after shooting began) is excellent, unsettling and directed in Francis' best Gothic style. His visual flair here is simply dazzling thanks in no measure to Norman Warwick's sparkling cinematography - in fact, the entire film is well lit - and a number of the set ups were evidently specifically designed to favor its Hollywood star who most of us remember for her superb performance in Hitchcock's masterpiece Vertigo.

Dr. Nicholas (Jack Hawkins) arrives at the insane asylum run by the eminent Prof. Tremayne (Donald Pleasence) to hear his absolutely bizarre theories as to how four of his patients ended up there.The first is young Paul (Russell Lewis), who lived with quarrelling parents Sam and Fay (Donald Houston, Georgia Brown), and who had concocted an imaginary friend dubbed Mr. Tiger. Or is he imaginary?Next is Timothy (Peter McEnery), whose newly acquired penny farthing - it's a sort of bicycle - is able to transport him back in time, all while a leering portrait of his uncle Albert (Frank Forsyth) watches over him.Then we meet Brian (Michael Jayston), who frustrates his wife Bella (Joan Collins) by bringing home - and falling in love with (I kid you not) - a tree. A creepy looking tree that seems to be named Mel.Finally, in the tale that takes up most of the movies' running time, the story of Auriol (Kim Novak) is told. She's having to deal with a rebellious daughter, Ginny (Mary Tamm) while entertaining a writer named Kimo (Michael Petrovitch).Only the fourth tale, "Luau", has any real kick to it. And it's an appreciably twisted tale indeed. But overall, the segments of "Tales That Witness Madness" are bland and lack style. A shame, given that director / cinematographer Freddie Francis *could* do solid work in this format. Things get a little too silly a little too often, especially in the sequence with Brian and Bella, and the endings are rather predictable. Certainly this excellent cast of familiar faces does some good work; Pleasence is a pleasure to watch as always. And the movies' final moments come complete with yet another twist before the end credits start rolling.However, if you're looking for a good horror anthology from this period, check out "Asylum" or "Tales from the Crypt" instead.Five out of 10.

This was the last of the British horror anthology flicks from the late 60's/early 70's that I still had to see, and I intensely searched for it because I've always been a great fan of the Amicus formula. Some of their versatile portmanteau film rank highly among my list of favorites, like "The House that Dripped Blood" and "Asylum", and even the lesser qualitative efforts were nevertheless still very enjoyable. I don't know what exactly went wrong with the stories and set-up of "Tales that witness Madness", but it's a very inferior and severely disappointing film in comparison with all the other British anthology horror films from that era. The main issue lies in Jennifer Jayne's screenplay, which comes up with supernatural-themed stories full of absurd gimmicks, paradoxes and downright crazy situations. It already begins with a wannabe mysterious wraparound story in which a peculiarly behaving doctor – played by Donald Pleasance – guides a fellow doctor through the psychiatric ward of a mental institution and stops to elaborate on four of his heaviest cases. The first story is about an unhappy 8-year-old boy who seeks imaginary friendship with a tiger (!) because his parents continuously argue and neglects his needs. The boring and predictable build-up of the story is more or less compensated through a bloody climax, but "Mr. Tiger" nevertheless remains a senseless and dull quickie that appears to have been improvised at the spot by the actors. The second story opens potentially atmospheric and sinister, with an antique dealer slowly going deranged due to the evil influence of an ancient portrait that he baptized Uncle Albert. The portrait is somehow telepathically linked to a penny-farthing. Whenever the eyes of Uncle Albert force Timothy to ride the hi-wheeler, he gets teleported back in time and reincarnates as the man from the painting. I presume the initial set up was that the guy in the painting wanted him to witness 'something' in the park, but it never gets that far because Timothy's girlfriend sets fire to the penny-farthing. This segment slowly evolves from interesting into infuriatingly bad and ridicule, with time paradoxes and nonsensical symbolism about reincarnation. The third segment is a load of rubbish as well, but at least it's rubbish starring Joan Collins. Her husband develops a strange obsession for a piece of tree that he takes home and puts in the middle of the living room. I don't think that any woman would like a piece of rotting and moist wood in her house, but whenever Bella comes near the thing she suffers from nightmarish visions in which she gets raped in the woods. "Mel" is arguably the best story of the four, but still very silly and unmemorable. The final segment is possibly even twice as boring and inept as the three previous ones combined. By this time, my interest in the film had already vanished, but I seem to remember something about a really ugly guy sacrificing the virgin daughter of a wealthy high- society lady to a phallic statue and serving her flesh at the diner table. Sounds gruesome enough, but the story itself is slow-paced and unimaginably pretentious. "Tales that witness Madness" was one of my personal biggest disappointments ever. None of the stories can hold a candle to even the weakest segments of any other Amicus production and even the experienced veteran director Freddie Francis can't make the film remotely interesting.

Although lacking the genuine chills of other Amicus anthology pictures such as Tales From the Crypt, Asylum, and Vault of Horror, Tales That Witness Madness is still a rather enjoyable romp in the land of the macabre. Once again we have a framing story of some patients being observed by two doctors of sorts...Donald Pleasance and Jack Hawkins, in his last screen role. We are then entertained with four tales...each extraordinary and containing some element of the supernatural. The first story deals with a boy and an invisible tiger. Pretty decent little effort. The second story details how a picture has powers to empower the living to its bidding. I felt this story was set up very nicely and then just left flat, so much more could have been done with it. The third story was an entertaining one about a husband putting aside his wife(Joan Collins no less) for a hunk of a tree. The last story is easily the best. All I really can say is that dinner is served at the luau, voodoo style. The acting is decent throughout and the sets and cinematography is very good.