Good start, but then it gets ruined

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

I can relate literally. I grew up as a child with a grandparents who owned a corner meat market and grocery. I found this slightly amusing having been raised around a butcher/meat cutter and found moments of it to be sorta humerus in a dark sick twisted humor. You should never mess with a person who owns a meat market cause they could make you into sausage, burgers and have it their way instead of the burger king way. I would watch it again . I found it on the B-rated movies app under a private roku channel and enjoyed watching it . I have a special love for old 1970s bizarre horror and this one was right up my alley. It had all those things I like about the 70s horror movie from the cheesiness to the obscure nature of the film.

The jolly, but deranged Otto Lehman (marvelously played to the wacko hilt by the great Victor Buono) gets released from an asylum and becomes determined to live up to his sterling reputation as the best butcher in Vienna. Otto inevitably goes crazy and murders several folks. He disposes of the bodies by grinding them up and turning them into his famously delicious sausage. Director Guido Zurli, working from a wickedly witty script by Dag Mollin and Dick Randall (Randall also co-produced the picture and pops up in a small role as a police officer), does an expert job of creating and sustaining a playfully macabre sense of often hilariously twisted pitch-black humor. Buono's sweaty, quirky and massively bulky presence elevates the film's quality a few extra notches. Brad Harris contributes a solid performance as meddlesome, sarcastic American reporter Mike Lawrence, the luscious Karin Field supplies a tasty eyeful as Otto's enticing neighbor Berta, and Franca Polesello is a snippy riot as Otto's naggy, shrewish wife Hanna. Better still, a couple of lovely ladies remove their clothes and bare their beautiful bodies. Alex Alexander's wonderfully catchy and jaunty score likewise scores a bull's eye. A real treat.

The film opens with the line "Meat is Meat(alternate title as well), and just like that a B foreign horror film is a B foreign horror film. If you were expecting anything too grandiose, look not here to be sure. Nevertheless, as foreign B horror films go, one could do far worse than The Mad Butcher. Victor Buono sweats his way through the film as an Austrian butcher being released from a madhouse where he spent the last three years for throwing liver at a woman. Boy, with crimes being dealt with in that fashion just think what would happen if it were something else! Upon returning "home," Buono refuses to go home with his wife and soon occupies the spare room above his neglected butcher shop. Things were bad whilst he was gone: the shop is filthy, his brother-in-law is working behind the counter with dirty fingernails, and meat has risen in price catastrophically. Well, what do you expect with Buono in a loveless marriage where his wife controls the purse strings and orders him about? Meat du jour no doubt. The film has all those tantalizing ingredients so common to horror films of the 70s. Shocking violence(at least the suggestion of it) and gratuitous sex(here lots of frontal nudity and some scenes of a suggestive nature). Buono plays the Sweeny Todd type well. He definitely has a certain charisma despite his girth and swarthy elements. He literally pours perspiration throughout the whole movie. The rest of the cast does equally well in what is really a black comedy about a mad butcher who is really quite insane. I did tire of American actor Brad Harris in the hero role, however. The settings are very impressive and the music by Allesandro Allesandroni is compelling. As soon as I heard the catchy, kitschy music I knew I was familiar with it and its sound. Alllesandroni worked with Ennio Morricone in some of the Clint Eastwood westerns of the 60s and the style is unmistakable. The film is not particularly bloody at all, though the opening shots of raw meat being sliced were somewhat distasteful. The film never for one instant tries to take itself too terribly serious, yet it never descends into straight farce either. For its kind of film, it is a cut above the rest.

This isn't the type of movie I'd usually watch, but a friend who's obsessed with obscure films brought it over. I found that I was thoroughly entertained by the movie. It has a quirky comedic feel, although it has a horror/slasher theme to it. There definitely isn't anything in it that shouts special effects and some of the editing is a little amateur, but it works. Buono's facial expressions really make up the bulk of the entertainment.. the cop/reporter guys are way too fake but the women are hot.. not to mention partially nude in many scenes. By the time they catch up with the bad guy, you really feel satisfied that his activities are being exposed. I wouldn't recommend it as a 'great' movie to watch, but definitely worth checking out if you are in the mood for something a little different.