Irish mansion, morbid ceremony, family secrets, ax murderer, big reveal, roll credits.
While working with Roger Corman on The Young Racers, a very young Francis Ford Coppola somehow convinced him to finance his own film. He used existing sets and locations, enlisted film school friends, wrote a script, finagled additional funding, and filmed during down times. The title was inspired by Hitchcock’s Psycho, but there was already a 1955 film named Dementia, so he added the number 13. You know, because 13 is unlucky.
Coppola borrowed a few actors from The Young Racers but the only recognizable face is William Campbell. He had a long film and TV career, but to me he will always be General Trelane, retired. The film’s two pretty blonds each have a sexy sexy scene (by 1963 standards) calling back to Coppola’s earlier work on nudie cuties.
A close look at this film may reveal clues of a director that would be one of the all time greatest for an eight year stretch, but without the insight of hindsight I doubt even an educated viewer could pick that out. It is at times clumsy, some of the acting is quite poor, and the story is really a mess. It feels as if a few interesting elements were awkwardly tied together into a narrative. It’s worth noting that his previous directing experience was creating additional scenes to somehow save The Terror. Coppola learned a great many things during the process, but the importance of budget and time may have been the best lesson.
Dementia 13 is a watchable and mostly interesting film, if only because of the director. But it is by no means a good or important film. There are flaws the viewer must overlook, but at least it’s brief. AMRU 2.5.
“Especially an American girl. You can tell she's been raised on promises.”
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