BA_Harrison A variation on the oft-told Sweeney Todd story, The Mad Butcher stars Victor Buono as Viennese butcher Otto Lehman, who, after spending three years in a madhouse for slapping a customer with two pounds of liver, is finally declared sane. Of course, this being a horror movie (of sorts), Otto is still far from mentally stable, his mind eventually snapping while being nagged by his shrewish wife Hanna (Karin Field). After throttling her, and breaking her neck, he decides that the best way to dispose of his wife is to turn her into sausages, which he sells to the public. Other victims follow, with the sausages a huge success with Otto's customers. Meanwhile, intrepid reporter Mike Lawrence (Brad Harris) has his suspicions about the butcher but struggles to convince the police that he is up to no good.Black comedy is the order of the day here, with the horrific notion of grinding up people for sausages played for fun rather than frights, sweaty lard-bucket Buono's performance almost as camp as his King Tut in TV's Batman. Director Guido Zurli gives his picture a ghoulish, garish look through strong use of primary colours, which adds to the comical tone, and employs a jaunty soundtrack throughout. Since there is very little blood on show, Zurli compensates with a reasonable amount of gratuitous female nudity, Otto ogling his shapely neighbour Berta (Franca Polesello) as she undresses each night at her window, while his brother-in-law Karl (Luca Sportelli) brings home prostitute Frieda (Hansi Linder) who happily displays her wares.Very cheesy, a little bit sleazy, and surprisingly breezy, The Mad Butcher is by no means a great film, the story-line rather predictable and repetitive, but it passes the time easily enough. 5/10.

ferbs54 Vegetarians, and all those with an aversion to red meat (like me), should be warned away from the 1971 Italian/German horror comedy "The Mad Butcher" (or, as it is called here under its earlier title, "Meat Is Meat"). Though the film's violence is not explicit and is mainly limited to bloodless throttlings, the initial close-ups of bloody chops, steaks and schnitzels being sliced and torn is guaranteed to turn the stomachs of all those soyboys and soychicks. In the film, Victor Buono plays Otto Lehman, "the best butcher in Vienna," who is released from a mental institution, after three years, for beating a customer over the head with a raw liver. (She had it coming, as it turns out!) Otto's wife, brother-in-law and neighbors soon rouse his temper to a murderous pitch, however, and before long, his pushcart sausages are sporting a new, all-natural ingredient! Made on the supercheap, rarely funny, and with poor dubbing and sound to boot, "The Mad Butcher," like Otto's sausages, is a real mixed bag at best, though there are some joys to be had. For one, the score by Alessandro Alessandroni (who had so impressed me with his wonderful music for such disparate films as "Killer Nun" and "The Devil's Nightmare") is quite amusing and catchy, reminiscent of a Munchen beer hall in the 1920s. And Buono himself is quite marvelous, by turns sympathetic, amusing and scary. The sight of him, with his 300+-lb. bulk and wielding a straight-edge razor, practically frothing at the mouth in a berserker rage, is one that will surely stick in the memory. The film is rarely interesting when Buono is offscreen--such as during the tedious scenes of a Chicago reporter romancing one of Buono's neighbors--but when he's on, you can't take your eyes off him. An amusing curiosity at best, "The Mad Butcher" might still do you the favor of forever turning you off to those mystery monkey-meat sausages you've been scarfing down with your breakfast!

Chase_Witherspoon When formerly respected local butcher Otto Lehmann (Buono) is released from a mental health asylum (calmly explaining he's now cured of his ills after a good lie down), his wife's incessant nagging quickly flips his crazy switch, and he soon finds his murderous impulses escalating out of his control. Intrepid local reporter Brad Harris suspects Otto might not be as cured as his small-goods, but lucky for Otto, his knackwurst are proving to be a hit, particularly with the local constabulary.Looking at the box cover to the video version of this movie, one might be reluctant to view, for fear of the unsavoury content that might be lurking within. Having seen this movie a few times, I can say with confidence, that such a reluctance would be unwarranted. Far from being another inept slasher movie, this Italian offering is an inspired black comedy, that benefits from a deliciously maniacal performance by the inimitable slapstick villain, Victor Buono. His camp acting more than compensates for the paltry production values and often claustrophobic staging. Performances like this, underline the untimeliness of Buono's death in the early eighties.Perhaps this was the movie from which sausages attracted the rather unpleasant colloquialism of "mystery bags"? But then "meat is meat", as they say.

Clayton With Buono's comedic performance as a butcher who decides to take back over his butcher shop after 3 years in the asylum, and the film's overall tongue-in-cheek approach to the story, this film is an entertaining, dark-humored thriller. The film's bloodless approach to the subject matter is also a welcome change as well to numerous others of its ilk. Also, watch for the well-directed climax!!