Madness (2010 film)

Madness, a 2010 horror film, was co-written and co-directed by Sonny Laguna, David Liljeblad, and Tommy Wiklund. Its plot involves two teenage girls who accept a ride from some boys, only for the group to be kidnapped by a deranged Swedish family. The film carries an R rating for violence, nudity, gore, and profanity.

The story begins in the Minnesota wilderness, where a hillbilly named Drake murders a pregnant woman. In 1994, cheerleaders Tara and Jenna, heading to a competition, meet Chad and Oliver at a gas station and offer them a lift. A one-eyed Swedish-speaking man, using a walkie-talkie, tracks them and causes their car to crash with roadkill. Drake then offers the group a ride, driving them into the woods. Chad jumps from the moving car, while Drake and One-eye capture the others at gunpoint. Tara and Jenna are taken to a house, and One-eye rapes Oliver in a shed. Chad kills another hillbilly, Bob, and follows smoke to the house. Oliver escapes his handcuffs by sawing off his own hand but is killed by Drake. Tara and Jenna free themselves but are confronted by Drake, whom Chad stabs in the neck. The trio attempts to escape by rowboat but are recaptured by One-eye, who forces them to hear Jenna drown. Chad breaks free, suffocates an elderly clan member, and frees Tara. They flee into the forest, where Chad lures Drake and One-eye into an abandoned house. Though wounded, Chad is overpowered, but Tara shoots Drake with a gun taken from the dazed One-eye. One-eye attacks Tara, and Chad lures him through loose floorboards, impaling him, then finishes him with an axe. A post-credits scene, set six months later, shows another Swedish survivalist sniping a mother and daughter at the gas station.

Released on DVD in the United States by Well Go in 2010, the packaging claims it is the "Unrated Version," but this cut omits the scene of Oliver's sodomy. HorrorNews.net called the film awkward, unoriginal, and inconsistent, though it noted effective elements like the effects and finale, concluding "there are certainly worse options out there to stomach." The Worldwide Celluloid Massacre described it as a long chase-and-fight scene between equally stupid victims and freaks, who ignore obvious dangers and pause at critical moments, but conceded that the "endless visceral energy and brutal escalating fights" create some almost-good action and horror.