Ameriatch One of the best films i have seen

Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Micah Lloyd Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

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.

t_atzmueller 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.

HumanoidOfFlesh After being released from a mental hospital Otto returns to his old job as a butcher.He tries to adjust to his new life,but after a bitter argument with his wife he accidentally kills her.Fearing he will be sent back to the hospital he grinds up her body and sells it as sausages.As friends and relatives start asking questions about her disappearance they too start ending up in the butcher's display case."The Mad Butcher" is an enjoyable black comedy with tasty main performance of Victor Buono.It's loosely based on two criminal cases of German serial killers/butchers Georg Grossman and Fritz Haarman.8 out of 10.Meat is meat and human sausages are human sausages.

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.