Redundant and unnecessary.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

The directorial debut of Francis Ford Coppola (courtesy of producer Roger Corman), DEMENTIA 13 has been hailed as a forgotten masterpiece. Those who make that claim are only half right. It is a rushed production with a very low budget and a young director who had yet to find his voice. These elements don't have to mean a sub-par movie, but in this case they did.The plot: when John Halloran (William Campbell) dies of a heart attack, his wife Louise (Luana Anders) disposes of the body and lies that he was called away on urgent business so she can claim his inheritance. This leads to a bizarre family gathering in an Irish castle where an ax murderer picks them off one by one. Luana Anders is convincing enough as the scheming Louise. She also is quite attractive in a Dusty Springfield sort of way. The rest of the acting is what I expected: passable but nothing special. The characters are cursory and, though the Hallorans are of Irish descent, none have an accent. So why bother to set the film in Ireland? It never occurs to anyone to notify the police when their family and staff members go missing. The film does a poor job of hiding the killer's face during the ax murders. The violence is more implied than shown, a bad move on Coppola's part. The score is simultaneously uninspired and grating. And in several scenes, it's hard to hear what the characters are saying. DEMENTIA 13 is a desultory exercise that moves like molasses, offers no suspense, and at 74 minutes feels longer than Coppola's three-hour- long masterpieces, THE GODFATHER and APOCALYPSE NOW. On the other hand, I can see the genetic link between this film and the disastrous BRAM STOKER'S Dracula.Item: When Louise strips to her underwear and goes swimming in a nearby pond, her panties change color from white to black. Item: Though she is swimming at night, Louise has a clear view of everything under the water.Item: The family doctor tells an ailing Mother Halloran, "Think of your mind as a bird in the hand. When it's relaxed, you're fine. But when it's tense…." (How do I know what it means?)Item: The killer takes his ax to one of the servants, who is never mentioned again. Either no one noticed, or didn't care, that he was gone.Item: As the family doctor pursues the killer through the woods, there is a cigar in his mouth that vanishes and reappears with each cut.Item: The title is never explained.

This film is famous for being the directorial debut of Francis Ford Coppola, but it's more than that. No, really!The film starts when a greedy widow covers up her husband's death in order to get his share of his rich mother's inheritance. During the course of her scheme she visits her husband's relatives in the family's castle. There she learns of their dark past, and finds more than she bargains for!It sounds like a mystery, and, well, it is... but it's also a proto- slasher horror film, with gore that won't impress today's fans, but the gore isn't the point: The film owes much of its terror from its setting, its imagery, and surreal circumstances that have a tint of something otherworldly. From the sinister castle, with dark hallways, to the dead autumn plant life, daylight scenes that look like sunsets, and night scenes that are competently dark (a rarity at that time), the creepy music and some of the downright ghoulish scenes later on in the film, and you have a movie that looks scary without any unnecessary fog or smoke. The eerie music, crackling sound and even the contrasting tone on the grain of the film make it seem even more supernatural and horrifying at times. As a low-budget black and white film from this era, there are mistakes, to be sure (and a few are quite painfully obvious). But the expert camera work, scene layouts, creepy sets, more than make up for it.Now, I'm going to make some complaints, and they might sound harsh, but really, but really they're just minor nitpicks in what is a truly enjoyable film. First, you're going to see the murderer's identity from a million miles away. If it's not obvious to you in the first half hour, I would be surprised. Second, for a film that purports to take place in Ireland, there is a distinct dearth of Irish accents (and the ones that are there are not believable). Third, there are some technical flaws in the film, but outside of one painfully obvious errant boom mic they can be overlooked for the most part. Some of the actors are terrific (of particular note is Luana Anders as Louise, and Patrick Magee doing his usual sinister shtick as Dr. Caleb), but some of them are well... terrible (Mary Mitchell takes the role of the whiny, shrieking Kane, who is this film's innocent lamb, but still very unlikable). In some films these flaws would undo everything, but in this film they're just 'flavor.'In conclusion, if you like movies that can terrify you with what you don't see, as well as what you do, be sure to watch it!

The legend behind DEMENTIA 13 is well known among movie and horror film fans. Roger Corman tells Francis Ford Coppola, who was working for him at the time, that if he can make a movie in a week's time with funds left from his latest film and the location where another of his films was shooting (the week due to the contract with that location ending) he would give him a shot. Coppola jumps at the chance, makes this movie and the two have an argument of it being not quite what Corman wanted. Corman brings in Jack Hill for a few additional sequences and the end result is the movie, Coppola's first credited "legitimate" movie.The movie went on to play the drive-in circuit under several titles and later become a staple of horror host shows across the country, even more so when it became a public domain title. With their hold on most of their titles it's odd that AIP (American International Pictures) didn't hold on to this title as well. Because of this it has turned into another of those movies found in countless horror DVD packages using an almost always low quality print. That all changes with the release from The Film Detective of the movie on blu-ray. As with several titles I've now watched from the company they've done a great job of finding the optimal print and transferring it with loving care to offer perhaps the best edition of the film available.If you've never seen the film it begins with a gold digging wife named Louise whose husband John dies while rowing a boat near the family estate in Ireland. Rather than reveal his death and losing out on any chance of the family inheritance she dumps the body and rows ashore. She joins the family and tells them her husband had to go back to New York on business and thus begins a weekend that is unusual to say the least.Mother, Lady Haloran, is a patriarch who rules the roost. Each year she gathers together the other family members in a remembrance of the loss of her only daughter some years ago. Still grieving Kathleen her three sons all return and they repeat the funeral process always ending in her collapsing at graveside. This year things are a bit different though.To being with there is Louise, the wife with the intent of doing all she can to get in her mother-in-law's good graces and lay claim to her share of the inheritance to come. There is the youngest brother Billy, tormented by something that happened in the past that we aren't made privy to at first. Richard (William Campbell) is the oldest of the brothers, an artist with a fiery temper. And there is Kane, the young American fiancé of Richard who loves him with all her heart and is adapting to the ways of this less than normal family.As Louise sets about a plot to convince Lady Haloran that Kathleen is trying to contact her from the grave the rest of the family just tries to get through the weekend. When Lady Haloran collapses after thinking she's seen proof of Kathleen local doctor Justin Caleb (Patrick Magee) is called in to care for her. Justin has his suspicions that something is amiss but he's not quite sure what and stays the weekend as well. The film takes a Hitchcockian twist when our main protagonist is murdered by an axe wielding maniac, something Corman was going for when he handed Coppola the reigns on the picture. We're left to discover just who the killer is as another victim falls to the axe. Is it a brother, the fiancé, the doctor or the mother? For the budget being as low as it was this is a great horror flick with a ton of atmosphere. The use of black and white photography actually adds to the feeling here rather than damage it. The use of the pond where many of the strange occurrences take place is also well done with select images that will stick with you long after the film ends. I know some of these have remained with me from the time I was a child and saw the film one late night as shown by my local horror host of the time. While it may seem quaint to younger viewers today it was quite chilling at the time.As I stated earlier The Film Detective has done a great job with this release. Keeping in mind the vast number of prints of this film in circulation it is great to see a comprehensive edition made of the best quality prints possible and on blu-ray. Once more the company is less about extras and more about the actual film itself and for me that works fine. The best part is that we now have access to a decent edition of the film to be watched over and over again, preferably with the lights out.

Arriving at a family gathering, a series of weird accidents befalls the family who soon find that a vicious killer with a startling secret is among them and have to fight to get out of the house alive.This one here is a really lackluster affair. The fact that this one contains some really big plot-holes really stands out. The most easily-spotted one is that the whole family has a way to get in touch with while away as she provided them with an address during introductions but none of them feel the need to correspond during the time. The reasoning isn't that effective to warrant no one wanting to check up on it, and as there's a way to check it out for authenticity, that's a little hard not to believe. There's several others as the jumbled nature of the story is also a problem since it seems like three separate stories rolled into one. The inheritance plot starts off the film, then switches gears to get to the murder mystery and then becomes a rather weak psycho-thriller with a police investigation. This really could've been cleared up a little easier to make it more understandable. The last real flaw is that it's really way too slow. The murders don't start occurring until almost the last act and there's not a whole lot of action before that. This really should've included a little more into it to get the action rolling and instead it plays long sections with nothing going on. This one does manage a few good moments here and there, as the opening scene is quite memorable as a man and a woman argue as they take a rowboat onto a lake. With music blaring from their transistor radio, the man has a heart attack and the woman promptly disposes of him and the radio overboard, finishing with a great shot of the man hitting the bottom of the lake along with the radio which is still playing. The initial murder is a truly shocking and totally unexpected scene, as it occurs just at a moment when the initial story is starting to take shape, and you don't see it coming. It also manages to boast some very gory and quite strong murders, including a graphic ax hacking in a scene ingeniously shot up from under the surface of the water and a decapitation that shows one the victim's decapitated head goes bouncing down into the water. The shots of the large Gothic castle inspire some nice atmospheric shots, and along with a few other really nice scenes, comprise the film's good points. Overall, though, this one is pretty lackluster.Today's Rating-PG: Violence.