Dementia 13
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Dementia 13 | |
|---|---|
 A promotional film poster for "Dementia 13." |
|
| Directed by | Francis Ford Coppola |
| Produced by | Roger Corman Marianne Wood |
| Written by | Francis Ford Coppola Jack Hill |
| Starring | William Campbell Luana Anders Patrick Magee |
| Music by | Ronald Stein Les Baxter |
| Cinematography | Charles Hannawalt |
| Editing by | Stuart O'Brien Morton Tubor |
| Distributed by | American International Pictures |
| Release date(s) | 25 September 1963 |
| Running time | 75 min |
| Country |  |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $42,000 (estimated) |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Dementia 13 is a horror thriller released in 1963 by American International Pictures, starring William Campbell, Patrick Magee, and Luana Anders. The film was written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola and produced by Roger Corman. Although Coppola had been involved in at least two nudie films previously, Dementia 13 served as his first mainstream, "legitimate" directorial effort.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
One night, while out row boating in the middle of a lake, John Haloran (Peter Read) and his young wife Louise (Luana Anders) argue about his rich mother's will. Louise is upset that everything is currently designated to go to charity in the name of "a mysterious Kathleen." John tells Louise that if he dies before his mother does, she will be entitled to none of the inheritance. He then promptly drops dead from a massive heart attack. Thinking quickly, the scheming Louise throws the fresh corpse over the side of the boat, where it comes to rest at the bottom of the lake. Her plan is to pretend that he is still alive, in order to ingratiate her way back into the will. She types up a letter to Lady Haloran (Eithne Dunne), inviting herself to the family's Irish castle while her husband is "away on business".
Upon arrival, she immediately notices that things are a little strange in the castle. She observes John's two brothers, Billy (Bart Patton) and Richard (William Campbell) taking part in a bizarre ceremony with their mother as part of a yearly ritualistic tribute to their youngest sister, Kathleen, who died many years before in a freak drowning accident. Lady Haloran still mourns for her, and during this year's ceremony, she faints dead away. Louise tries to help, but is rebuffed and informed that the reason the woman fainted is because she noticed that the flowers on Kathleen's grave had suddenly died.
Louise, realizing that Lady Haloran is emotionally overwrought and superstitious, devises a plan intended to convince the old woman that Kathleen is trying to communicate with her from beyond the grave. This plan involves stealing some of the dead girl's old toys and placing them at the bottom of the estate's pond where they will float to the surface in the middle of the day in an ostensibly ghostly way. At night, Louise swims into the pond and begins placing the toys as planned. However, she is shocked to see what appears to be Kathleen's perfectly preserved corpse at the bottom of the pond. Horrified, she swims to the surface...and is abruptly axed to death by an unknown assailant.
Concerned family doctor Justin Caleb (Patrick Magee) arrives and becomes determined to solve the mystery. He questions the family in an intense, almost insane manner. Meanwhile, the murderer strikes again, decapitating a man who is poaching on the estate.
Finally, Dr. Caleb figures everything out with the aid of an obscure nursery rhyme, and manages to confront and stop the madman before he can kill again...
[edit] Production
Coppola worked as a soundman on Corman's The Young Racers (1963), a racing film which starred Campbell and Magee. That movie was shot in several different countries, and after production was completed Coppola talked Corman into allowing him to remain in Ireland with a small crew and direct a low-budget horror film, to be produced by Corman. Coppola wrote the screenplay in only a few days to help convince Corman that he'd be able to handle the responsibilities. Corman was impressed enough by the script to provide Coppola with a fairly measly $22,000, and the young director was able to arrange an additional $20,000 in financing himself by pre-selling the European rights to a producer named Raymond Stross.[1]
During the filming, Coppola kept Corman updated on the status of the production in letters that promised lots of sex and violence would be in the movie, "enough to make people sick".[1]Coppola was left entirely on his own while directing the film, without interference of any kind from Corman. But during the editing stage, Corman demanded that several changes be made to the film that Coppola did not agree with. According to Coppola, Corman "insisted on dubbing the picture the way he wanted it, adding voiceovers to simplify some of the scenes. Worse, he wanted some extra violence added, another axe murder at least..."[1] Jack Hill was later hired by Corman to shoot some brief sequences featuring actor Karl Schanzer as a comical poacher who is beheaded by the murderer.
Corman created a cheap William Castle-style gimmick for the film, a "D-13 Test" handout given to theatre patrons that was obstensibly devised by a "medical expert" to weed out psychologically unfit people from viewing the film. The test consisted of such questions as "The most effective way of settling a dispute is with one quick stroke of an axe to your adversary's head?" and "Have you ever been hospitalized in a locked mental ward, sanitarium, rest home or other facility for the treatment of mental illness?", with Yes or No as the only possible answers.
[edit] Response
Despite a rushed production and a somewhat incomprehensible screenplay, Dementia 13 has managed to receive a considerable amount of positive critical reviews over the years. Michael Weldon, in The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film, noted it had "[A] great trick ending, some truly shocking gory axe murders, and lots of inventive photography."[2] Tom Raynes, in the Time Out Film Guide, said "The location (an Irish castle) is used imaginatively, the Gothic atmosphere is suitably potent, and there's a wonderfully sharp cameo from Patrick Magee..."[3] Danny Peary, in his Guide for the Film Fanatic, stated that despite the "hopelessly confusing" storyline, "...the horror sequences are very exciting."[4]
When the Roan Group released a laserdisc and DVD of the film, it included an amusing and informative audio commentary by Campbell. The DVD also featured the "D-13 Test" in digital form as an extra.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c McGee, Mark Thomas. Faster and Furiouser: The Revised and Fattened Fable of American International Pictures, McFarland & Company, Inc., 1996. ISBN 0-7864-0137-0
- ^ Weldon, Michael. The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film, Ballantine Books, 1983. ISBN 0-345-30381-4
- ^ Raynes, Tom. Dementia 13. Time Out. Retrieved on 2006-07-09.
- ^ Peary, Danny. Guide for the Film Fanatic, Simon & Schuster, 1986. ISBN 0-671-61081-3
[edit] Other Sources
- Campbell, William. Dementia 13 DVD, The Roan Group/Troma Entertainment, 2001, audio commentary. ASIN: B00004YS6M
[edit] External links
| Francis Ford Coppola | |
|---|---|
| The Godfather series | The Godfather (1972) | The Godfather Part II (1974) | The Godfather Part III (1990) |
| 1960s | Battle Beyond the Sun (with Aleksandr Kozyr and M. Karzhukov) | The Bellboy and the Playgirls (with Fritz Umgelter and Jack Hill) | Tonight for Sure | Dementia 13 | You're a Big Boy Now | Finian's Rainbow | The Rain People |
| 1970s | The Conversation | Apocalypse Now |
| 1980s | One from the Heart | The Outsiders | Rumble Fish | The Cotton Club | Peggy Sue Got Married | Gardens of Stone | Tucker: The Man and His Dream | New York Stories (with Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese) |
| 1990s | Bram Stoker's Dracula | Jack | The Rainmaker |
| 2000s | Youth Without Youth |
| Productions | The Junky's Christmas (1993) | Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) | Don Juan DeMarco (1995) | Lanai-Loa (1998) | The Florentine (1999) | The Virgin Suicides (1999) |
