THE MANSION OF MADNESS (1973) is an hallucinogenic-expressionist rendition of Poe's story The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether, which explores the simple premise of lunatics taking over the asylum. Though made in Mexico it more closely resembles many European gothics which begin with a coach rumbling through misty woods toward an eerie castle. In this case the castle is acknowledged from the beginning to be a lunatic asylum, instead of you having to figure out along the way that everybody is nuts. There is not much to Poe's story besides the situation. His writings never seemed fully comprehensible to me, being more mood than meaning and more poetry than plot, and this film does a good job of carrying that through. At that point in history when this was made, the civilized world had been on drugs for years, wallowing in sexual and social libertinism, and it was just at that time that many filmmakers got the idea they could do any damn thing they wanted. Movies like The Holy Mountain, Sweet Movie, and O Lucky Man! not only got made but watched, and there was a market for exercises in excess. This particular mansion of madness was created in some remarkable scenes of industrial decay and creates an effective mood of derangement suitable to its origin in Poe's brief but intense story of lunacy liberated.
Even if you don't have any drugs to take this is still a freaked out headtrip, but it maintains an attitude of culture and sophistication throughout, never seeming to indulge for the sake of mere shock value. The film appears to have High Art intentions and was made early enough in that period of accelerating decadence that it can be judged as a success in that regard.
Addendum: Scholars of the Cinema will find it worth noting that the director, J.L. Moctezuma, was producer of Jodorowsky's Fando and Lis and El Topo.
Thanks also to reader Lou Minatto for noticing that Artistic Supervision was credited to noted Surrealist painter Leonora Carrington. That explains a lot about how this movie looks.
