''Madhouse'' is a 1990 American

black comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the old ...

starring

Kirstie Alley Kirstie Louise Alley (January 12, 1951 – December 5, 2022) was an American actress. Her breakout role was as Rebecca Howe in the NBC sitcom ''Cheers'' (1987–1993), for which she received an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe in 1991. From 1997 ...

and

John Larroquette John Bernard Larroquette (; born November 25, 1947) is an American actor. He is known for his starring roles in the NBC military drama series '' Baa Baa Black Sheep'' (1976–1978), the NBC sitcom '' Night Court'' (1984–1992; for which he rec ...

. Written and directed by Tom Ropelewski, it was produced by

Leslie Dixon Leslie Dixon is an American screenwriter and film producer. She began her career as an original screenwriter, writing films such as 1987's '' Outrageous Fortune'' and '' Overboard''. She then moved into adaptations and re-writes, developing the s ...

and released by

Orion Pictures Orion Pictures (legal name Orion Releasing, LLC) is an American film production and distribution company owned by Amazon through its Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) subsidiary. In its original operating period, the company produced and released films ...

Plot

Stockbroker Mark Bannister and his TV reporter/anchorwoman wife Jessie are a successful

yuppie Yuppie, short for "young urban professional" or "young upwardly-mobile professional", is a term coined in the early 1980s for a young professional person working in a city. The term is first attested in 1980, when it was used as a fairly neu ...

couple with an idyllic

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

life, aside from a

toilet A toilet is a piece of sanitary hardware that collects human urine and feces, and sometimes toilet paper, usually for disposal. Flush toilets use water, while dry or non-flush toilets do not. They can be designed for a sitting position popu ...

with a faulty handle. It is interrupted when Mark's timid cousin Fred, and his

pregnant Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring develops ( gestates) inside a woman's uterus (womb). A multiple pregnancy involves more than one offspring, such as with twins. Pregnancy usually occurs by sexual intercourse, but ca ...

wife Bernice fly in from

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...

. The first days are slightly chaotic thanks to Bernice's cat Scruffy. Mark gives them $300 to spend in the city, but his alone time with Jessie is interrupted when her gold-digger sister Claudia arrives after a fight with her rich Middle Eastern husband Kaddir, whom she divorces after he cancels her credit cards. Fred and Bernice's visit, meant to last only five days, is extended when Bernice falls on the way to the car. She is instructed by her doctor, Dr. Penix, to stay put until the baby is born. At a local bar, Mark motivates Fred to quit being Bernice's pet, but Fred takes the message too far and leaves "to find himself." Meanwhile, Mark's next door neighbor and

carpenter Carpentry is a skilled trade and a craft in which the primary work performed is the cutting, shaping and installation of building materials during the construction of buildings, ships, timber bridges, concrete formwork, etc. Carpenters t ...

Dale builds a machine to keep Bernice comfortable in bed all day. Bernice becomes increasingly irritating, insisting on being waited on hand and foot and demanding constant funerals and burials for Scruffy, who dies multiple times but comes back each time. Claudia's son Jonathan also comes to live with them. Jessie tries getting Dale to seduce Claudia, but Mark and Jessie inadvertently burn down Dale's villa. Since it can't be rebuilt for three months, Dale and his two teens, delinquent son C.K. and phone-obsessed daughter Katy, move in, and Mark and Jessie are forced to take them in to avoid an

arson Arson is the crime of willfully and deliberately setting fire to or charring property. Although the act of arson typically involves buildings, the term can also refer to the intentional burning of other things, such as motor vehicles, wate ...

lawsuit. Meanwhile, Mark helps Jonathan get a job as a mailroom clerk at his office. As days pass, chaos persists, and Mark and Jessie are essentially forced out of their own home. When Mark fails to show up for work, his friend and colleague Wes finds the couple outside living like

hippies A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...

. Wes motivates Mark to resist a little longer; he's on the verge of closing a successful deal for his boss, Bob Grindle. At work, Mark gets a box from Bogota containing

cocaine Cocaine (from , from , ultimately from Quechua: ''kúka'') is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant mainly used recreationally for its euphoric effects. It is primarily obtained from the leaves of two Coca species native to South Am ...

—sent to him but requested by Jonathan. Grindle tells Mark to sell a set of stocks due to a scandal, but Mark forgets to before leaving work with the cocaine. Fred returns, having grown a mustache and acquiring a baby

elephant Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantida ...

. Police arrive at the house and find Scruffy ODing on cocaine; they destroy the Bannister house during the drug bust, which Jessie's TV station televises. Seeing it, the overstressed Jessie bursts into an expletive-filled

mental breakdown A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitt ...

on live TV. Pushed to their limit and facing apparent ruin and imminent charges, Mark and Jessie decide to abandon the house to their guests and leave town to start new lives. The next day, when Mark and Jessie return to salvage what they can, they hear a recording from Dr. Penix stating that Bernice was actually never pregnant, and their last shred of sanity dissolves. An enraged Jessie catapults Bernice from her bed to the backyard and forces her to confess to knowing she wasn't pregnant. She then ruins Claudia's expensive clothes to force her out, while Mark terrorizes Dale with an electric saw until he and his kids leave. Lastly, Jessie puts

fireworks Fireworks are a class of low explosive pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic and entertainment purposes. They are most commonly used in fireworks displays (also called a fireworks show or pyrotechnics), combining a large number of devices ...

in Jonathan's cocaine bag, which explodes as he tries to flee in Dale's (loaner) Lotus. Mark and Jessie then threaten to torch their own house in order to keep their parasitic visitors away for good. The police arrive and apologize, stating that their only evidence—Scruffy—disappeared, and that they will pay for all damages incurred. Grindle arrives and, believing Mark had meant to keep the stocks, declares that he amassed a small fortune when the scandal was found to be false. He offers Mark a portion of the profit and a promotion. Claudia takes the opportunity to seduce Grindle, and Dale flirts with one of the police officers, much to C.K's chagrin. Scruffy returns from the police-station evidence room, but is determined to stay with Mark and Jessie. Bernice and Fred depart, with Fred taking much more control than before. Jessie and Mark are about to get cozy, but first Mark smashes the ever-malfunctioning toilet with a

sledgehammer A sledgehammer is a tool with a large, flat, often metal head, attached to a long handle. The long handle combined with a heavy head allows the sledgehammer to gather momentum during a swing and apply a large force compared to hammers designed t ...

. The epilogue states that Jessie's furious on-air outburst earned her her own TV show, and she and Mark moved into a three-bedroom house in Malibu and lived happily ever after...until their parents came to visit.

Cast

as Mark Bannister *

as Jessie Bannister * Alison La Placa as Claudia, Jessie's sister *

John Diehl John Henry Diehl (born May 1, 1950) is an American character actor. Noted for his work in avant-garde theater, Diehl has performed in more than 140 films and television shows, including ''Land of Plenty'', '' Stripes'', ''City Limits'', ''Nixon ...

as Fred Bannister, Mark's cousin *

Jessica Lundy Jessica R. Lundy (born March 20, 1966) is an American actress best known for her television roles, especially as Joel Fleishman's fiancée/ex-fiancée Elaine Shulman on the series ''Northern Exposure''. Early life and education Lundy was born in ...

as Bernice Bannister, Fred's wife *

Bradley Gregg Bradley Gregg (born November 8, 1966) is an American actor. Life and career Gregg has appeared in Hollywood films since the 1980s and is perhaps best known for his supporting roles in '' Stand by Me'' (1986), '' A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dre ...

as Jonathan, Claudia's son *

Dennis Miller Dennis Michael Miller (born November 3, 1953) is an American talk show host, political commentator, sports commentator, actor, and comedian. He was a cast member of '' Saturday Night Live'' from 1985 to 1991, and he subsequently hosted a str ...

as Wes, Mark's colleague *

Robert Ginty Robert Winthrop Ginty (November 14, 1948 – September 21, 2009) was an American actor, producer, screenwriter, and director perhaps best known for playing Thomas Craig Anderson on the television series '' The Paper Chase''. Early life Ginty wa ...

as Dale, the Bannister's neighbor * Wayne Tippit as Mr. Grindle, Mark's boss *

Paul Eiding Paul Eiding (born March 28, 1957) is an American actor and instructor, best known for his voice roles as Colonel Roy Campbell in the ''Metal Gear'' series and Max Tennyson in the '' Ben 10'' franchise. During the 1970s, Eiding was a prolific c ...

as Stark * Aeryk Egan as C.K., Dale's son * Deborah Otto as Katy

Production

The film was written and directed by Tom Ropelewski, and produced by Leslie Dixon. The cinematographer was Denis Lewiston.

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

, the film has a score of 0% based on reviews from 6 critics.

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

gave it 2 out of 4 stars. The ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...

'' gave it a negative review and ''

People A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...

'' magazine.

References

External links

* * {{AFI film, id=58605, title=Madhouse 1990 films 1990 comedy films American comedy films Films set in California Orion Pictures films Films scored by David Newman 1990 directorial debut films 1990s English-language films 1990s American films