THE MAD

At a farmhouse in the Canadian countryside, the house specialty is the delicious hamburger made with the chosen meat from the Sutter farm. The fresh pulp that forms the basis of the hamburgers actually comes from cows raised with a strange hormone that generates an annoying side effect in those who consume it: the tasters of the hamburgers prepared with Sutter meat, in fact, turn into cannibal zombies. The unsuspecting Hunt family, who arrived at the farmhouse to spend a weekend of peace, will find themselves in the middle of an invasion of the undead! There is nothing more embarrassing for a comedian to find himself telling stories to an audience that instead of reacting with a laugh does nothing but yawn. But those yawns are not due to the extreme need of the audience, but to the very boring repertoire of the comedian and his null charisma. “The Mad” is that comedian, we the viewers are the bored audience. The formula that underlies this Canadian film is the perfect example of how NOT to make a horror-comedy, that is, combining English humor like “Shaun of the Dead – L’alba dei morti dementi” with the nonsense comedy of the madcap films; the result is a bland reheated soup that doesn’t even remotely have the class of “Shaun of the Dead” and that completely lacks the freneticity of the rapid-fire gags of films like “Scary Movie”. What infuriates the most is the enormous potential that a film like “The Mad” had, literally wasted to give life to a miserable substitute for “Colorado Cafè”. “The Mad” in fact contains excellent ideas to fit into that mini-genre that exploits the recent fear of the “mad cow” disease that is periodically brought back by the news agencies of the whole world. “Dead Meat”, “Isolation – La fattoria del terrore” and, in a certain sense, “Black Sheep – Pecore assassine” are among the major representatives of this genre; deeply different films that fit into the zombie genre, the monster movie and the beast movie and approach the subject with different languages, sometimes serious sometimes more carefree. All films in their own way successful and interesting to which we would have liked to join also “The Mad”, which on its side also has an open and potentially intelligent satire against the unrestrained American food consumption (we are in Canada, ok, but the film cleverly disguises itself). All this good stuff is thrown into the trash can by a visibly incapable John Kalangis, director, screenwriter and producer of the film, who fails to complete any of the commitments taken: “The Mad” does not entertain if considered as a comedy, it does not scare or disgust if considered as a horror, it does not make you think if considered as a satire film. It only infuses a lot of sadness. Kalangis managed to make extremely boring a film on paper “fun” lasting only 80 minutes and this not only because he fails to hit a single gag, but also due to too many dialogues and an excessively slow pace, moreover the characters are unpleasant and sketched with superficiality. In a film of this kind one could have played the splatter card, after all it is known that it always attracts the consent of horror enthusiasts and it goes well with comedy! And instead very little blood flows and no brains or guts are to be spoken of. Another winning idea, thrown here and then abandoned to itself, is to give life of its own to the steaks and hamburgers obtained from the “altered” livestock. An original and bizarre idea just right to go alongside the killer tomatoes of the eponymous saga on the wall of celluloid strangeness; unfortunately this aggressive beef appears in a couple of scenes, made with a very fake CGI and incapable of generating real attraction. From this huge hoax only the protagonist Billy Zane (“Titanic”; “Racconti dalla cripta – Il cavaliere del male”) is saved, a solid professional who supports the entire film on his own shoulders. For the rest “The Mad” should be completely forgotten.