Dementia 13 Review

9.5/10

In 1963, Francis Ford Coppola made his debut as a major director with the movie "Dementia 13."  This obscure film was one of the first of its kind, being a forerunner of the slasher genre.  I absolutely love this movie, because of its great horror scenes, awesome direction, and creativity. 

The film starts out with a husband and wife on a boat.  The man John is talking to Louise about how if he dies, then she is out of the family, and will not get anything out of it.  Quite coincidentally, John dies of a heart attack right after this.  Not knowing what to do, Louise throws him right off the boat and pretends that John has went back to New York.  This whole beginning scene is really awesome, because it has such an authentic feel to it.  Elvis Presley plays in the background(in the form of a creaky radio that is on the boat), and there is a lot of realistic portrayals of tensity in it.  The coolest thing is that when Louise throws John into the water, the radio goes with him, and it suddenly starts to malfunction. Such a subtle thing was genius, because it gives a chilling feel to the scene. 

Louise then gets in touch with the family of John, still keeping the fake story going.  Louise is afraid though, because the Halloran family is quite insane as she says.  The first person she gets in touch with is Billy, and he seems to be very normal actually.  He too is scared of the "Castle Halloran," which is where his mother and brother live.  The two of them still go there though, and we then meet Lady Halloran, Richard Halloran, and Richard's girlfriend Kane.  Right off the bat, you can tell there is something very suspicious about the first two, because they have a very dark personality to them. 

The cast in this movie was very well chosen, and the character development is perfect.  The late great Luana Landers was stellar in the role of Louise.  She was one of the most beautiful girls in the business, and she had so much talent too. I love how her character is almost an "anti-hero" of a sort.  Even though we are supposed to be rooting for her, she is quite a rotten person herself.  She lies to the family because her greed, and she shows a lot of darkness in her character.  William Campbell was a very safe pick for Richard Halloran, because all he needs to do is speak to give an aura of terror.  He was also a veteran of the B-movies, so this film was right now his alley.  Bart Patton was cool in the role of Billy Halloran, because he seemed like a genuinely nice guy, but you can tell that he is delusion and insane. While this isn't true to Patton's real life, he does a great job of making it seem like it was genuinely him.  Mary Mitchell was very likable in the role of Kane, because she is sweet, and quite innocent.  She is also absolutely beautiful, and this is used in a way to show Richard's shallow personality. I also really liked Patrick Magee in the role of Dr. Justin Caleb, because he was very stern, and a complete jerk most of the time. 

Being released in 1963, the violence shown was completely shocking. There was some really brutal ax murdering, and while they weren't as graphic as now adays, they had a bite to them like nothing else. The first attack may be one of the coolest scenes ever.  The aggressiveness that comes from every chop really makes things crazy.  I really feel that this was one of the first slasher films, because of the way the kills take place.  You have a mysterious man using axes to butcher helpless people.  Another thing that works in defense for this argument is that most of the attacks happen because of immoral behavior exhibited by the "victim."  I also really like how we don't know who the killer is for most of the film.  It gives so much more terror to the film, and makes it a great mystery.  Outside of just the murders, I really love the way that creepy things pop up throughout the movie.  A great example was the little monkey doll that was swinging the ax. It was almost like a foreshadowing for the future of the movie, and it was super cool. This really shows how much care Coppola put into making the film, because he knew that every little thing counted.

Another part of the film that I really liked was the score. It was an extremely haunting soundtrack, and I feel that it followed a theme throughout the movie.  I noticed that the music from "Halloween" had some similarities, and that there must've been some influence. 

The ending was extremely shocking during my first viewing of the movie, because it is a huge trick, and the killer turns out to be someone that I didn't completely expect. The choices were narrow for who it could be, and the person ran through my mind a couple times, but it was so skillful that they made one of the other characters do something suspicious right before the true criminal was revealed.  

I really recommend this film to anyone interested in the cinema, because it is a true masterpiece. There is great characters, direction from Coppola, horror sequences, and a fantastic ending.  The movie was nothin like the other competitors of its time, and it set a whole different bar for the future of the horror genre.  So take a chance with this movie, because it is possibly the greatest B-Movie of all time, and a very worthy pick in the horror category.