Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Coppolla and Corman's infamous quickie horror, 5 April 2005
By A Customer
"Dementia 13" was the result of producer Roger Corman's infamous "apprentice" program at AIP; Corman was shooting his own film and let Francis Ford Coppolla get his first director's credit by shooting "Dementia 13" on the same location. "Dementia 13" is just a nice little low-budget horror film for which the biggest complaint is that the pace is a tad slow. The story is set in Ireland and if it bears a strong resemblance to Corman's film adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe, well "duh." When her husband drops dead, Louise Haloran (Luana Anders) know she will be cut out of the Haloran family inheritance so she pretends he is in New York on business and heads off to the ancestral home in Ireland to try and get in good with the family. But at Castle Haloran the family is engaged in a morbid ritual marking the death of John's sister Kathleen, who drowned in the pond six years earlier. The question of inheritance becomes more interesting once family members start being hacked to death by an ax-murderer. Despite this development "Dementia 13" is not a gory film, but more of a character study, which alone makes it somewhat atypical for the time and genre. Coppolla manages to creat atmosphere so that the film is more of a psychological exercise than it is a splatter flick, and the submereged scream is certainly a memorable touch. The most recognizable faces in the film are Patrick Magee as Dr. Caleb and William Campbell, soon to go to a small measure of fame in a couple of episodes of the original "Star Trek" and a place in Beatles trivia as the man who supposedly had plastic surgery to replace Paul McCartney in the Beatles after his "death" (he was also married to Judith Exner, and anybody who has links to JFK, the Beatles and Star Trek is a pop culture immortal). If there is still a DVD version of "Dementia 13" out there that has the commentary that Campbell did for the Laser Disc version, check that out if you can.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A wonderfully creepy thriller from a young F. Coppola, 9 Mar 2003
Francis Ford Coppola and Roger Corman are two names I would never have thought of putting together, but linked they are in the production of the highly enjoyable thriller Dementia 13. I was quite amazed to discover that Coppola got his start as an assistant to Corman, and this film, Coppola’s directorial debut (the first he acknowledges, anyway), was actually filmed on the same set of the contemporary Corman production of The Terror. This really is Coppola’s twenty thousand dollar baby, as he wrote as well as directed the film. I for one found it quite good. Although the killer is not that hard to identify, there were enough suspicions cast upon one or two other characters to keep me from putting all of my accusatory eggs in one basket before the climactic ending. There are also some twists and turns along the way that I didn’t really see coming, and I was forced to change my whole outlook midway through the drama. Dementia 13 is not really scary or gruesome, but it does succeed in producing something akin to chills on one or two occasions. The murder weapon of choice is an axe, but the wielder of that axe is in no way very proficient; he can only succeed by hacking away maniacally until such time as he actually makes contact with the victim’s body. He does have a natural talent for lifting a dead body by the hair and dragging it along behind him, though, which is always a plus on a mad killer’s resume. At the heart of this story is the tragic death of a little girl named Kathleen. Each year on the anniversary of her death, the grieving mother and her sons reenact the funeral service, which culminates in the mother’s collapse. This particular year, two unwelcome guests reside in the family’s ancient Irish castle, the greedy wife of the eldest son (who is unable to be there for reasons made quite obvious at the beginning of the movie) and the fiancé of another son. As individuals begin to mysteriously disappear from the castle grounds, almost everyone in the family becomes a potential suspect. The family doctor is yet another person to keep your eye on, as his behavior is questionable and suspicious at times. The deceased child Kathleen does haunt the family in a sense, and her appearance to an individual marks that person for certain axe-related death. I found this movie more and more compelling at it went along, and I quite enjoyed trying to figure out exactly who the killer actually was. The pace of the story was aided greatly by very effective background music, and Coppola definitely displayed the type of talent that would blossom into directorial greatness in his later career. If you enjoy a good who-dunnit movie, you will almost certainly get a big kick out of Dementia 13.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
The birth of a genius on the silver screen, 16 Jun 2007
A rather simple and short film by a young director. In black and white of course because it is cheaper, but also because it is very classic in that kind of psychological thriller. Hitchcock did it with Psycho, why not Coppola then? Basically it is the guilt that develops and is cultivated in a family when some unacknowledged, unrecognized and unknown children's game turns sour, that is to say ends up with a dead child. The point is that the situation lacks originality and what's more the cause of the death is even trite, drowning. The most interesting part is the study of the mother as a family tyrant that imposes some kind of eternal remembering of the dead sister. That puts everyone on edge, on the defensive, hence on the side of hiding what should not be hidden because it creates a sick atmosphere that leads everyone to some kind of psychosis if not schizophrenia. Then the film has some shortcomings, such as the inheritance and the mother's will, or whatever that disavows the daughters in law who are treated as so many strangers. Then what is the deal with the first son, the one who has a heart condition? How long can it be hidden that he is not in New York but at the bottom of a lake? But it is worth watching because we can witness the birth of a great film director in these black and white frames.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine & University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne
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