The Mad Butcher (1971)

Memorable, crazy movie

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

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

Combining elements of horror and comedy isn't easy. Though usually rather pathetic or miles off the target, the mixture is occasionally successful: to mind come Roman Polanskis "Dance of the Vampires" and Peter Jackson's "Brain Dead". Another thing that comes to mind are (often) gritty European productions of the 1960's and 1970's, that where brimming with pitch-black humour and which combined horror and comedy at a well-balanced 50/50 level. And among the finest example is "Lo strangolatore di Vienna": The story is very similar to the Sweeney Todd tale: Otto, a humungous, mentally unstable butcher is released from the madhouse and ends up with a string of (originally unintentional) murders on his hand. Post-war times being hard and meat scarce, Otto does what comes closest and grinds his victims to sausage meat. The sausages are bestsellers and eventually even the Viennese police are on the Ottos list of customers.I've mentioned that it's hard to believe that this film actually is Italian, not Austrian. That's mainly because I've watched the synchronized German version which has been dubbed into finest Viennese dialect, as you'd only find it backyards and working class quarters. If familiar with (Austrian)-German, it's a joy to watch; the quick-talking yet always wordy and always biting dialogue – it's about authentic Viennese as it gets.Pillar of the film is actor Victor Buono – Buono shines in sweaty role, slowly transforming from a gentle, even though mentally instable hulk, originally murdering (almost) by mistake, to a truly scary, blood-thirsty psychopath. Buono has that rare gift to convincingly appear mild, kind-hearted, creepy and psychotic at the same time – the nearest one could compare this to would be some of Donald Pleasances finest performances.Granted, those 1970's Euro B-flicks have often not aged very well, today coming across as 1960's Doris Day and Tony Randall kind-of affairs (just with more nudity) and slightly gorier Hammer productions but if names like Brad Harris or Karin Field ring a bell, then this may well be a little, forgotten gem, wrapped up in a original Viennese sausage – just remember: never mix swine and beef and try to go for the German dubbed version if you have a chance! 8 from 10 points.

The idea behind LO STRANGOLATORE DI VIENNA ("The Mad Butcher" or "Meat is Meat") is not exactly original. Back in the 1920s, there were two versions of the story of Sweeney Todd, several sound versions since as well as the Sondheim play. Also, in more recent years, films like EATING RAOUL and THE CORPSE GRINDERS all had very similar themes of cannibalism. So, to make the film work well amidst all these similar films, it had to offer something more--a better sense of black humor or perhaps more terror. Unfortunately, this film offers none of these--it's just a bad film that missed its chance to be funny or entertaining.The film starts well. Victor Buono is being released from a mental hospital after a three year stay. However, unlike what you'd expect, he does not want to go. After you see his awful wife (an annoying harpy) and leech of a brother-in-law, you understand why. At first, things go well--Buono is happy to be back at his job as the owner of a butcher shop--but he absolutely refuses to go home to live with these creeps. At this point, I liked the film--it had a nice quirky sense of humor.Unfortunately, the film soon digressed into a mix between a sex film (with ample boobage) and a super-low budget film--as evidenced by terrible dialog and cheesy action. In fact, once the killings started, the fun stopped--and it SHOULD have reveled in a campy dark sense of humor. To make things worse, all humor or attempts at humor disappeared at the end--and the film just seemed sick, as the guy you wanted to like (the butcher) started becoming more of a sick pervert--and it's very uncomfortable laughing at a guy who is essentially a sex offender AND murderer. Killing people in funny ways can be funny to some, but rape is a sure comedy killer. It made the film seem much more exploitative and less watchable or fun.Overall, a very bad film that should have been a lot better. Even THE CORPSE GRINDERS (a very bad film) is much better than this mess. Unsavory and difficult to like...even on a kitsch level.Cliché #22 alert: This film features a fight near the end where the hero is attempting to rescue the damsel from the maniac. During the entirety of this fight, she just stands there and watches--offering no help at all! Frankly, if such a dumb cliché were true, I would say that he'd be best to just let the dumb lady die!! After all, she'd too stupid to live!!

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.