Dementia 13 (1963)

Director:

Francis Ford Coppola

Writers:

Francis Ford Coppola (writer)
Jack Hill (second unit writer)

Release Date:

18 November 1966 (Denmark)

Genre:

Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

You Must Pass the "D-13" Test To Prepare You for the Horrifying Experience of Dementia 13. If You Fail the Test...You Will Be Asked to Leave the Theater!

Plot:

John Haloran has a fatal heart attack, but his wife Louise won't get any of the inheritance when Lady Haloran dies if John is dead...

Plot Keywords:

Heart Attack | Castle | Pond | Irish | Shotgun

Cast

William Campbell	...	Richard Haloran
Luana Anders	...	Louise Haloran
Bart Patton	...	Billy Haloran
Mary Mitchel	...	Kane
Patrick Magee	...	Justin Caleb
Eithne Dunne	...	Lady Haloran (as Ethne Dunne)
Peter Read	...	John Haloran
Karl Schanzer	...	Simon
Ron Perry	...	Arthur
Derry O'Donavan	...	Lillian
Barbara Dowling	...	Kathleen

Also Known As:

The Haunted and the Hunted (UK)
Demência 13 (Brazil) [pt]
Demencia 13 (Spain) (cable TV title) [es]
Dementia 13 (Brazil) [pt]
Dementia 13 (West Germany) [de]
Dementia 13 (Spain) (DVD title) [es]
Djævelens borg (Denmark) [da]
Nattens skräcknäste (Sweden) [sv]
Parafrosyni (Greece) [el]
Terrore alla 13 ora (Italy) [it]

Runtime:

75 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White | Color (colorized)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Netherlands:12 | Finland:K-16 | Australia:M (DVD rating) | Australia:R (original rating) | UK:15 | USA:Unrated | West Germany:16

Filming Locations:

Ardmore Studios - Herbert Road, Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland

Company:

Filmgroup Productions

Trivia:

This line in the film: "Especially an American girl. You can tell she's been raised on promises" influenced the Tom Petty song American Girl in which he sings "She was an American Girl, raised on promises."

Goofs:

Continuity: In the movie's latter half Dr. Caleb enters a work shed and discovers the body of Louise and the lifelike Kathleen doll. Carefully picking up the doll, he closes the shed door, and immediately in the next scene is shown walking with the doll in his arms and a cigar in his mouth.

Quotes:

Louise Haloran: It's nice to see her enjoying herself for a change. The mood around this place isn't good for her.... Especially an American girl. You can tell she's been raised on promises.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "TCM Underground: Dementia 13 (#1.11)" (2006)

Ludicrous script, but some good scenes make this reasonably tense

Francis Ford Coppola's debut horror flick is sometimes hailed as a kind of forgotten masterpiece, which is downright preposterous. Bored with his work as an assistant director on THE YOUNG RACERS he wrote a screenplay, and asked Corman for $22,000 to let him film it on the same sets used for THE YOUNG RACERS. He shot the film in two weeks and the shooting of the two films at the same sets simultaneously only worsened the quality of the film. I must admit, made with this 99 cent budget, it's a comparatively well crafted horror mystery with some good scenes but overall pretty dull with a story that makes little sense.

The members of the Haloran family gather at their ancestral Irish castle to attend the annual commemoration of the death of Kathleen, the daughter of the family who drowned in the lake on their estate six years earlier. One of the sons in the family, John Haloran, dies of a heart-attack while listening to Elvis on the radio. His gold-digging wife Louise then dumps the body in the pond and pretends he has returned to New York, because she only gets part of the family inheritance when her husband is alive. When staying at the castle she begins an elaborate ruse to convince Lady Haloran that her drowned daughter Kathleen is still alive, but soon, she is killed by an axe-murderer, who proceeds to kill of the rest of the family one by one. What follows is: who's the psycho? Much inspired by Hitchcock's PSYCHO, it bears little relation plotwise, let alone in suspense. Coppola puts more emphasis on graphic violence than suspense and the story doesn't make much sense. With some good scenes it kept me watching till the end, but that's about it.

Not a complete waste of time though, as Coppola met his future wife Eleonor Neil on the set.

Camera Obscura --- 6/10