I Watch Films: Dementia 13

 

Dementia 13

A very early Francis Ford Coppola film. In an Irish castle a family gathers for a ceremony to remember a drowned daughter. In the opening scene a husband and wife go out boating in the night, the husband noting that his wife will inherit nothing when his mother dies. At that point he has a heart attack. She dumps the body over the side and fakes a letter that he’s gone to New York for business.

We meet the rest of the family; a waspish mother, an artist in metal whose fiancée flies in, and another brother lacking obvious character traits. They perform the ceremony and the mother faints when a flower dies as it touches the gravestone. As the film proceeds the daughter-in-law ties toys of the dead daughter to the bottom of the lake so that they will rise up, causing the mother to collapse (and perhaps die, allowing her to inherit?) but she is killed by a mysterious man with an axe. There’s a comedy gamekeeper and a suspicious doctor as well.

Things get violent and confusing, and the film doesn’t make a great deal of sense, but it does have several striking scenes. This Coppola guy seems like a director to watch.

Watch This: For a short, spooky, curiosity of a film
Don’t Watch This: It makes no sense, the tiny budget (Roger Corman using the leftover from another film), short schedule and reliance on shock are all obvious
It Seems To Be Available Online: If you want to check it out