Summary
Dementia 13 begins with Louise Haloran (Luana Anders) throwing her husband’s body overboard after his heart attack while on a lake in a rowboat. He lies about the incident to claim his will. Louise writes a letter to Lady Haloran (Eithne Dunne) in which she says that her husband is away on business. Louise arrives shortly after at the family’s Irish Gothic castle. He plans to take advantage of the sickly Lady Haloran and hopes to die soon so he can inherit the fortune.
When he arrives, he begins to notice strange things, such as the two brothers Billy (Bart Patton) and Richard (William Campbell) holding an annual ceremony for their dead younger sister Kathleen. His sister died years ago in a mysterious drowning accident.
While the greedy Louise is there, she convinces Lady Haloran and her two sons Billy and Richard that her late husband is away on business. While talking to Billy, he discovers that the castle is supposedly haunted by Kathleen.
He also plans a way to convince the distraught and superstitious Lady Haloran that her daughter Kathleen is still alive. The plan was to place Kathleen’s toy dolls on the bottom of the lake and then all of a sudden they floated to the surface right in front of Lady Haloran. Louise’s elaborate plot would end up being a fatal effort for her. It doesn’t take long until the mysterious ax wielding assassin begins amassing more bodies to make sure no one finds out the horrible secret.
Dementia 13 review
Dementia 13 is a surprisingly effective bargain basement production that incorporates elements of slasher and mystery. Along with Psycho (1960), Dementia 13 is one of the first slasher horror films. Like Psycho, Dementia 13 has a similar style and content. Elements of mystery and suspense are used a lot in Dementia 13 as they were in Psycho. They are both in black and white and have similar cinematography. The murder scenes in this movie have great anticipation prior to the person’s death.
Dementia 13 has a lot of scenes shot at night and there aren’t many details. The camera angles used for Dementia 13 are similar to Psycho. Dementia 13 avoids being cheesy, which is great as it fits in with the serious nature of the film as a spunky slasher movie. It was made at a time when not many movies were extreme. It’s a very dark image that adds a spooky atmosphere that makes it effective for murder scenes. The plot is simple, although somewhat unbelievable. The best elements of Dementia 13 are the mystery, suspense, and psychological aspects. The addition of Kathleen’s dolls was also good for the spooky atmosphere.
The movie does a great job of masking who the ax killer is. Seeing the different characters throughout Dementia 13, such as Billy, Richard, and family physician Justin Caleb (Patrick Magee), you may be flipping over who you think the killer is. This style of hiding who the killer is would be used later in the great slasher horror, the first Friday the 13th (1980). Several of the characters have a suspicious character that would give you the impression that they could be responsible for the murders. . Assassinations are also carried out in the dark, so the ax wielders’ faces are completely obscured.
The acting in Dementia 13 is decent. Underrated actor Patrick Magee does a good job as always with his distinctive voice, portraying a character that borders on insanity. You may recognize him from Clockwork Orange as the wheelchair writer who both he and his wife were attacked by Alex and his “Droogs”. He is younger in Dementia 13 and his hair is not gray. Patrick Magee also played John Steed on the television series Avengers.
Luana Anders, who plays Louise, does a good job playing a sordid and greedy woman that you won’t like. She doesn’t look bad either and takes off her bra and panties in a scene for the underwater swimming sequence. That underwater scene is perfectly shot, just like the swimming scenes in The Creature From the Black Lagoon.
The blood / gore in Dementia 13 is really tame compared to today’s slasher horror movies. There is very little to see in the details of the blood. The most graphic crime scene has one of the characters having his head cut off. You can see the really fake looking head rolling towards the lake. Another great thing about Dementia 13 is the threatening music. The musical score is almost as good as the songs on Psycho and Cape Fear. Provides atmosphere and complements tension-filled murder scenes well.
At the beginning of the movie, while Louise and her husband John Haloran (Peter Read) are in a rowboat, a really cool rockabilly song can be heard. The singer of the song sounds like Elvis. From what I read, it’s not Elvis singing. The person responsible for the voices does a great job emulating your voice. At 75 minutes long, Dementia 13 is an engaging and engaging first film for Francis Ford Coppola.
It’s a good low-budget Roger Corman production with mystery and suspense as its main strengths. It has a smooth rhythm and is not too slow. The movie could have used more murder scenes. To see the roots of the Slasher Horror movie genre, Dementia 13 is a good movie to watch. I just reviewed Dementia 13, the public domain version featured in my box of 50 Mill Creek Entertainment Horror Classics. A Blu-ray of the film is now available.
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