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!
Review of The Mad Butcher
