Madhouse is like every other Vincent Price horror film, which is to say it has a mediocre script buoyed by Price's performance, meaning on a scale of 1-10 it would rank about a five or six.
But, Madhouse has a couple extras going for it that make it just a tiny bit more enjoyable. First, Price's co-star is the one and only Peter Cushing, and the scenes they share are excellent, even when they aren't talking about anything consequential.
Second is the gimmick that Price and Cushing are playing aging horror movie actors, in other words, characters like unto themselves. This not only adds believability, but allows the producers to throw in a bunch of clips from old Vincent Price films as if they were showing clips from his character Paul's past work. For the horror movie buff, that means the chance to pick out actor and movie references throughout.
If you've seen no other Vincent Price horror films, I wouldn't recommend starting with this one - not just because it's not one of his best, but also because the funnest part of this movie are its references to all his other movies. In other words, watch this after you've seen the best of his 50s and 60s work.
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