Other Titles • The Haunted and the Hunted (1963) • Haunted and the Hunted
Synopses for Dementia 13 (1963)
1.
Francis Ford Coppola was working as an assistant to Roger Corman when he made this, his feature debut. The story goes that Corman let Coppola make the film so long as he could work around the shooting schedule of the film they were working on together, and the results are impressive given the budget constraints. Or maybe because of the budget constraints. The story concerns the family at Castle Haloran, the secrets surrounding the death of young Kathleen, and an axe murderer who seems to be picking away at all present. Coppola's deft direction keeps this from being a routine ghost story, using light and dark in his compositions to create tension and suspense. The film has an interesting way of spanning the traditional ghost story and the more modern gore-fests that we're used to. I have one bone to pick with the manufacturer of this disc: the transfer to DVD was made from tape. This is evident from the way the frames roll repeatedly during the last 15 minutes of the film, and the tape bunches a few times leaving video artifacts. DVD consumers want all the benefits of this medium, and not to have the degraded quality of tape preserved on it. If this is the only way you can get this film, at least the price is reasonable. It's also packaged as a Fright Night Horror Classic along with Night of the Living Dead and Revolt of the Zombies. --Jim Gay
2.
Francis Ford Coppola's directorial debut, produced by horror king Roger Corman, is a terror-filled tale of family ties chopped to pieces. DEMENTIA 13's opening scene of Louise and John Haloran alone on a boat drifting nowhere (as an Elvis Presley song plays hauntingly) is reminiscent of many Hitchcock films. Its 1963 release was just the beginning of what, for Coppola, would be a long career of helming chillingly powerful masterworks such as APOCALYPSE NOW and THE GODFATHER.
Set in a spooky Irish castle, DEMENTIA 13 begins as the Haloran family gathers to memorialize the death of the youngest sister, Kathleen. While various family members plot and connive, an ax murderer is terrorizing the grounds, and Kathleen's body shows up at just the wrong time. Slowly, the family members become increasingly suspicious of each other--as well as of the ghosts that haunt the castle. But when the sinister family doctor is called in to help with the mystery, the expertly planned Coppola chills really take hold.
3.
Gruesome axe murders plague the menacing ancestral castle of the Halorans, a family whose heritage includes greed, deception and death. Louise Haloran wants to enjoy a piece of her husband John's fortune, but when he suddenly dies without including her in his will, the scheming wife conceals the death from the family.
The castle is haunted by the spirit of John's long dead younger sister Kathleen. When Lady Haloran announces she will give all her money to charity in the name of Kathleen, greedy Louise concocts a plan. Arranging some of Kathleen’s possessions in the pond where the girl drowned, Louise emerges from the dark waters only to be attacked and murdered. The weapon: a razor-sharp axe! A killing spree erupts on the Haloran estate, seemingly motivated by the murderer's obsession with Kathleen. The surviving Halorans must discover the killer's identity before their fate is sealed.
Inspired by the success of Psycho, Dementia 13 is a startling early effort from writer/director Francis Ford Coppola. Reportedly made for less than $45,000 (an astonishingly low budget), Dementia 13 still manages to pack a powerful punch with moody photography, a stirring music score by Ronald Stein and violent scenes that remain effective today.
While Roger Corman was in Europe shooting The Young Racers, crew member Coppola presented him with a screenplay and offered to direct Dementia 13 on-the-fly, borrowing The Young Racers acting principals and piecing together a technical crew from available talent, Coppola created a triumph of art over budget. As if the already ultra-sensational demise of Luana Anders was not strong enough, an additional murder sequence, directed in a cavalier manner by Jack Hill, was later inserted by Corman who insisted on more over-the-top violence.
4.
Which One Is The Killer?
While working as the sound man on The Young Racer (1963), a cheap racing picture shot in Europe, Francis Ford Coppola talked Roger Corman into letting him direct a horror film in Ireland for $20,000. You hold the result in your hands: Dementia 13.
Little Kathleen's drowning hangs over the Haloran family. And as the dark secrets of the girl's mysterious demise begin to come to light, a series of gory axe murders begin to whittle away at Coppola's already-small cast. That impressive cast includes Luana Anders (Pit And The Pendulum, Easy Rider), William Campbell (Love Me Tender, TV's Star Trek) and Patrick Magee (A Clockwork Orange).
Coppola wrote the Psycho-esque script and invited friends from UCLA to work on the picture if they could make their way to Ireland. He then scrounged up an extra 20 grand and conned Ardmore studios into letting him shoot there for nothing.
Making good use of the marshes and castles of the Irish seaside and promoted with the "D-13 Test" (to make sure you're mentally prepared to see this motion picture, this DVD includes the test), Coppola's creepy Dementia 13 still delivers the goods.
5.
Which one is the insane killer? Richard...Brooding artist hiding a dark secret. Louise...Willing to do anything to gain fortune. Dr. Caleb...Was he investigating his own crime? Billy...Warped by the mystery of the castle. Lady Haloran...Is she revenging the death of Kathleen? Produced by Roger Corman, written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
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