Posted on Friday, 9 September 2011

DEMENTIA 13 (Coppola, 1963) - BF and I went to a “curious film fragments”-evening last night, organised by a colleague of mine, featuring clips from such diverse entertainments as ROAR and WITCHERY and even a fake slo-mo clip (i.e. the people were just moving v-e-r-y slowly). It was awesome. This movie I watched the day before yesterday, kind of in the same spirit: it’s a curiosity, a movie that time more or less forgot, and that would probably have been forgotten completely were it not that the director went on to direct little films like, oh, THE GODFATHER and APOCALYPSE, NOW. It’s one of those cheaply-made, Roger Corman produced B-films, and you can tell: the editing is incredibly clumsy, the acting is uneven, and the sound drops in and out. The imagery, however, shows quite a bit of talent, and the first twenty minutes or so are nicely atmospheric. Once the dude with the axe shows up, however, it all becomes a little to silly.

DEMENTIA 13 (Coppola, 1963) - BF and I went to a “curious film fragments”-evening last night, organised by a colleague of mine, featuring clips from such diverse entertainments as ROAR and WITCHERY and even a fake slo-mo clip (i.e. the people were just moving v-e-r-y slowly). It was awesome. This movie I watched the day before yesterday, kind of in the same spirit: it’s a curiosity, a movie that time more or less forgot, and that would probably have been forgotten completely were it not that the director went on to direct little films like, oh, THE GODFATHER and APOCALYPSE, NOW. It’s one of those cheaply-made, Roger Corman produced B-films, and you can tell: the editing is incredibly clumsy, the acting is uneven, and the sound drops in and out. The imagery, however, shows quite a bit of talent, and the first twenty minutes or so are nicely atmospheric. Once the dude with the axe shows up, however, it all becomes a little to silly.