Dementia

Never heard of it, knew nothing about, watched it on a friend's recommendation and was struck by how daring and experimental it was for the time it was made. I was expecting a real piece of 50's cheese, but the further I got into it the more I realized it could not be so easily dismissed. Some of the nighttime black and white photography of the Gamine being pursued through city streets is right up there with THE THIRD MAN, and many of the images (especially the hacking off of a dead man's hand) are shockingly indelible. I'd place it many rungs above Ed Wood and perhaps only a rung or two below Herk Harvey (director/co-star and primary creative force behind the great ultra low budget masterpiece CARNIVAL OF SOULS, recently reissued on a gorgeous Criterion Collection DVD). Included on the DVD presentation is the re-cut version DAUGHTER OF HORROR, with Ed McMahon (!) providing a hilariously pretentious voice-over that was meant to make the film more accessible to a mainstream audience. It's a real hoot, one to play at parties to give your cinephile guests a laugh.

I saw this great movie in error in 1972. Dementia 13 by Coppola was ordered and Dementia (Daughter of Horror) showed up. I was particularly impressed by the brilliant score by Antheil and sung by Marnie Nixon, later the voice of Maria in the movie West Side Story.

Interesting note - In the original movie, The Blob, it is the movie being shown in the movie theater when the kids run in to find their friends.

The style of Dementia was captivating and created a surreal mood. For those interested in obscure horror films, well worth seeing.

After originally seeing it it took almost 10 years to even find a reference to it (partially because of the two names). I finally got a copy of Dementia around 10 years ago and can now appreciate it whenever I choose.

Thanks be to TMC for reviving this curiosity for a popular audience. I can't imagine what the movie's producers foresaw in the way of audience potential. I gather the film was shot in 1953, certainly not a promising period for an experimental feature of any kind. I also gather the atrocious narrative was added later to maybe give the package commercial appeal. But not even a 50's drive-in farthest from town would book a weirdo like this. Perhaps college area theatres would have booked it as a midnight feature, playing up the sex angle. Anyway, to me, its origins appear puzzling, indeed.

All in all, the end result is about as schizoid as the lead female character, combining striking visuals and special effects with amateurish acting and brain-dead narration. Someone in production certainly had an artistic eye for visual composition—check out the long shot of the gamin entering and exiting the spacious hotel lobby. They're beautifully composed. Actually, the visuals suggest that perhaps Welles saw the production before filming Touch of Evil (1957), especially Dementia's skid-row area that resembles Evil's Venice beach locations.

Certainly the movie has its cheesy elements. But to call the movie itself cheesy is to miss the artistic undercurrent that kept me hooked.

This movie (originally 1953, I believe) is approachable on so many levels, it is difficult to say where to begin. We could start with the acting - Adrienne Barrett (whoever she is) is perfectly cast as the troubled, sinister, smirking, sexy anti-heroine. We could then examine the style - the mix of surrealism, expressionism, and film noir. We could then comment on the atmosphere - conjured through bleak-looking streets and unnerving music. Then there are the simple images - shadows growing and shrinking, gaunt faces, sharp contrasts between lights and darks. We might take a Freudian approach - the dysfunctional parents, the father imagery, the sexual symbols (cigars, no less!). There is also the Beat culture interest in the excellent jazz-band scene. There are also the intriguing comparisons one could make between the "silent" version and the narrated one.

As a horror movie in-itself, it may appear somewhat cheesy and overstated, but it clearly does not take itself too seriously, and you shouldn't either. Compared to other horror films I give it an 8, but due to its uncommon critical and historical appeal, I rate it overall a 9. Truly a unique achievement.

Finally after a long wait we can see the original version of "Dementia" which was re released two years later as "Daughter of Horror" , cut by two minutes and featured the notoriously bad voice over by the unknown (outside america) Ed McMahon , which was added as the re releasers thought that the public would not understand what was going on , it did the opposite and has unfairly given the film a bad reputation. Since the re release was shown , the film itself has pretty much disappeared and only terrible prints on the 1957 version have been available , giving a brief glimpse of what this film could have been. But now the full version has been released by Kino Films on DVD. The print is stunning (compared to the previously available anything would be preferable), and the restoration of the nightmarish "jazzey" score is fault less. "Dementia" and "Daughter of Horror" (it was given a more salatious title to get audiences in) are both on the disc...with some great extras its worth a look. The story itself is a living/dreaming nightmare , the boundaries are jarred from the first scene as we pan in from the empty street into the apartment window and track up to the bed. The Gammin wakes and looks as if she has just had a bad nightmare , she gets up and walks over to a drawer , opens it and pulls out a switchblade , she looks down and sneers , pockets the knife and goes out into the night. From here on we either know that she it totally insane or that she is out to protect herself or both. We follow her journey into bars and meetings with pimps and flower sellers. I wont tell you anymore about it , otherwise it will spoil the fun of finding out for yourself but this film is a must and belongs on any serious collectors shelf.