Dementia 13

This was a tad eccentric but proved to me a very delightfully surreal horror film. In watching this, you immediately get the feeling the director has both interesting, out-of-the-ordinary ideas plus the balls to do things his own way. It's flawed, but definitely shows plenty of directing chops and potential for brilliance, just a few years down the road. A bona-fide, low-budget, American classic.

***Coppola’s version of “Psycho,” sort of*** After the sudden death of her husband, an American woman (Luana Anders) keeps it secret and tries to ingratiate herself to the matriarch at the family’s manor in Ireland in order to extort part of the inheritance. But there’s a dark pall over the family after an accidental drowning seven years earlier, not to mention the specter of a psycho with an axe! William Campbell plays the strange brother and Mary Mitchel his fiancée. Shot in B&W, “Dementia 13” (1963), aka “The Haunted and the Hunted,” was the theatrical debut for writer/director Francis…

47/100 After the death of her husband, a woman tries to con her mother-in-law into believing in the ghost of a young girl who died 7 years ago so that she can work her way into the old ladies will. But something far more sinister is going on. Produced by Roger Corman and Written / Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, this is an interesting thriller, more for it's nostalgic sense than anything else. It's certainly not a mystery as everything plays out exactly as expected. At the time, I would imagine it was considered a rather grisly affair, though. Not bad. -- DrNostromo.com