"...Price is now at a point in his long career where his familiar flamboyance is used to evoke audience sympathy as much as fear.... Price and Cushing mellifluously outdo each other as uncharacteristic nice guys..."
Variety

"...a totally predictable, superbly entertaining horror film...efficiently controlled, adequately frightening and excellently acted throughout... For once, Price is not the villain and brings dignity and sympathy to his role. A number of clips from old AIP movies double for "Dr. Death" movies...Thus, Madhouse becomes something of a Sunset Boulevard [1950], horror-film style...The music by Douglas Gamley includes a song...sung charmingly over the closing roll by none other than Mr. Price himself."
Hollywood Reporter

"...The premise of Madhouse is too good to have been wasted on a film that is as ineptly developed as it is titled. Still, the film has some visual elegance: Vincent Price, leonine as ever, holds forth in great form, and his fans may be willing to overlook a plot that totally defies credibility...Price and his director, Jim Clark, achieve some genuinely ambiguous moments, suggesting the blurring between fantasy and reality, art and life, that belong in a far-better-realized film...With more care and thought, Madhouse could have been another Targets (1968), the Peter Bogdanovich film that made such excellent use of the byplay between Boris Karloff the man and his menacing screen image."
Kevin Thomas, The Los Angeles Times

"A partially successful mixing of squeal-worthy shocks and in-jokes for film buffs."
Cinema TV Today

"Good, if somewhat unimaginative."
Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide

"More jokey than terrifying, the film gives Price a few over-the-top opportunities which he takes with zest and the film's structure makes good use of clips from Price's old AIP appearances in what purport to be clips from his 'Doctor Death' movies. There were additional laughs from British viewers at the sight of BBC television chat show host Michael Parkinson uneasily and ineffectively impersonating a chat show host."
Alan Frank, The Horror Film Handbook

"This meeting of three horror stars is pretty lame."
Michael Weldon, The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film

"This American International/Amicus co-production...is poorly directed but still worth seeing, not least for all Price's candid performance; it may not be his Targets, but it's the Targets of his AIP years. The finale...is one of the most astonishing fade-outs in the genre.
Tim Lucas, Video Watchdog

"What a great premise, but unfortunately, the overall cheap feeling and general dreariness keeps it from kicking in...unfortunately it stands as a lasting memory of wasted potential both in story and in talent.
Frank Kurtz, Monsterscene

"Let down by poor production values (Quarry's office door has letraset instead of a brass plate) and some strange direction (the aimless sequence where Toombes is interviewed on a chat show is particularly clueless), the film does nonetheless have some wonderful surreal touches...In places, this is a truly unsettling movie...
Andy Boot, Fragments of Fear

"Although Price and Cushing had appeared together before... this story offered an opportunity to give their interplay an extra dimension. Instead, both Price's flamboyance and Cushing's cool, more introverted style are simply used - often as the subject for facile in-jokes - but never explored in Clark's competent but humdrum direction."
Aurum Encyclopedia of Film: Horror

"...Madhouse is by no means a classic, especially by comparison with the vaguely similar Theatre of Blood. It's choppily edited, undercast in its supporting roles and indifferently coloured, with a narrative incoherence reminiscent of Italian giallo films but with none of their redeeming visual flair...Price's back catalogue snippets are shoe-horned into the film without much rhyme or reason, other than to shore up the action whenever it threatens to flag, which is often."
Jonathan Rigby, English Gothic

"A cheapie A.I.P actor's revenge story employing pop psychology inferences and over-the-top hysterical acting...It's all played tongue-in-cheek and is rather cheesy but enjoyable."
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews

"Madhouse was another missed opportunity, all the more frustrating for the handful of Genuine Moments between two gentle gentlemen."
Lucy Chase Williams, The Complete Films of Vincent Price

"Much of the story is routine and predictable, and using footage from most of Price's Poe films becomes excessive to the point of monotony. But the film does present some nice twists towards the end, and seeing Price, Cushing and Quarry (who even gets to dress up as Count Yorga at a fancy dress party) is a real treat."
George R. Reis, DVD Drive-In

Though it at times aspires to the level of Price's classic of macabre humor Theatre of Blood, this film tends to stumble due to a middling script that dodges the opportunity to generate energy from the interaction of its two superb leads."
Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

"... old fashioned but entertaining horror whodunit..."
Stephen Jones, The Essential Monster Movie Guide

Compiled by Richard Harland Smith