Demented

This is one of those movies that's so bad it's just bad--too plodding, amateurish, gore-free etc. etc. to really be any fun--but it still has some qualities so atrocious they're worth a look, preferably if you're watching with a heavy finger on the fast-forward.

The main thing is the main "actress," who is so awful you can't imagine what they were thinking in casting her. She has a vocal range that goes from screetch to mousy squeak to whine--she'd be ideally cast as a disembodied voice used to drive someone crazy simply because it's SOOOOO annoying. Her (presumably in-character) personality is allowed to be almost equally off-putting; it's amazing how little sympathy we feel for a woman on thin mental ice after being gang-raped, because as played "Linda" is alternately clingy and tantrum-throwing when she's not just running around screaming.

Frankly, I kind of assumed all the actors here were moonlighting porn performers, because male lead Harry Reems (working under a pseudonym) is one; but it turns out the other actors I looked up on IMDb don't even have that excuse for giving less-than-pro-level performances. (In fact Reems embarrasses himself marginally less than anyone else here.) Some of the dialogue just seems arbitrary, as if they were trying to pad the runtime with more yakking to cover up the fact that the violence is so poorly and non-graphically handled.

There's very little logic at work: we never find out how the original rapists got caught, or who they were--let alone SPOILER!--why the nice neighborhood kids who later menace Linda would think scaring a recently gang-raped woman would be a harmless "joke." (Or how at the end Linda figures out something her husband has kept secret.) It's all monumentally dumb, though a slicker and more energetic film would have been required to actually make this an ENJOYABLE ridiculous/bad movie.

Nevertheless, I'll probably never forget lead Sallee Young's performance. Though believe me, I will try. You might want to check five minutes or so of her on YouTube (any scene where she's screaming/menaced is best) just to hear that fingernails-on-chalkboard voice. Funnily enough, it seems her only other substantial role was also as "Linda" in another almost unwatchably bad early 80s horror film, "Home Sweet Home" with "Body by Jake" Steinfeld giving an almost equally ludicrous performance as a crazed killer.

After surviving a rape, a woman becomes unglued and starts losing her mind in what's essentially a low budget reimagining of Repulsion without all the class and sophistication. The lead actress does nothing but whine for the entire film and it makes it really hard to root for her, especially when she goes psycho. With a better leading lady, but most of the movie is spent with this character, so if she's not cast right, the whole film is doomed.

DEMENTED is a preposterous, rather dull "thriller".

Linda Rodgers (Sallee Young) returns home after years in a mental institution, trying to recover from a gang rape. Readjusting to her marriage is difficult, due to her damaged emotions and flashbacks. Her husband (Harry Reems) is no help, since he's busy sneaking off to be with his mistress.

Poor Linda soon finds herself dealing with a whole new group of vicious perverts! She begins to mentally unravel. We know this because her whiny, warbling voice rises to ear-melting levels. Every time Linda gets worked up she sounds like a cross between a bratty 5 year old and a tornado siren! It goes right through your head like a drill!

Linda's attackers are -almost- as annoying as she is. Their deaths, though arriving too late to salvage this movie, do provide some relief.

Linda's final descent into madness is fairly believable, and is the best part of the movie. If only she'd been this good during the first two-thirds!

Special mention goes to Bryan Charles as Linda's gun-toting doctor. He's the only person who seems to care about her, and is also immune to her incessant shrieking that would turn lesser brains into guacamole!...

"Demented" is the undisputed champion of bad movies! And I've seen plenty of them! At least all the bad movies I've seen have some sort of low-grade cheap entertainment value. "Demented" does not! The back of the video box makes it sound much better than it actually is, take it from me, this movie is painful!

The lead actress, Sallee Elysse, challenges only Chesty Morgan and Connie Mason when it comes to bad acting! Whose girlfriend was she? The producer? The screenwriter? No casting director in their right mind would cast her unless she was somebody's girlfriend. The one redeeming value of her performance: she improves a bit when she loses her mind, but that bit is about the size of a breadcrumb. Then, she does flash her chest a lot and that makes up a bit for her ineptitude. The only actor worth noting is Harry Reems (billed here as Bruce Gilchrist), who is good as usual. I had a feeling it was him because of his famous handlebars moustache and it seems weird seeing him involved in simulated sex with his mistress when he can be seen performing hardcore sex in earlier films!

"Demented" borrows liberally from "Last House on the Left", "I Spit On Your Grave", and "Mother's Day". Of course, it has none of the power or "finesse" of those films. The acting is horrible (save Harry Reems/Bruce Gilchrist), none of the plot is very believable and Elysse makes for an annoying rape victim. All she does in her character portrayal is whine about being raped, go crazy and bitch, and cry in a high-pitched whine that has no rival on the annoying scale! Do not even rent this out of curiosity, please just avoid it at all costs! "Demented" deserves to be burnt, blown up, ripped apart by a pack of dogs, I think I've made my point.

Linda Rodgers is gang-raped while tending to her horses at a boarding stable. Disturbed by the brutal attack, Linda's grip on reality becomes increasingly weakened, propelling her into a psychotic break in which she enacts bloody revenge.

This lackluster and tacky "I Spit on Your Grave" knockoff seems to be striving to be a psychological character study, but the script, direction, and performances never really get it to that point. There is little in the way of narrative; the film inexplicably begins virtually in medias res as Linda is raped at a horse stable, and the remainder of the film feels like a series of stitched-together scenes that never propel the plot forward.

Uninventive, dry camera-work leaves the film feeling visually bland, which is another major detraction; the least one could hope for is an at least mildly aesthetically pleasing film, but sadly that is not the case. The performances are far from great, although I don't think they are quite as bad as some may have suggested—by eighties low-budget horror standards, they are more or less average. Sallee Young plays the tortured protagonist and is on and off the mark, playing her psychosis scenes in an exaggerated childlike pose; in spite of its imperfections, her performance is weirdly disturbing. Porn star Harry Reems plays her unfaithful husband and is somewhat memorable, while a series of unknown actors play her thug rapists. The conclusion is considerably disturbing, though it also plods along at the same pace as the rest of the picture.

Overall, "Demented" is a cheap and tacky effort, and an obvious attempt to capitalize on the rape-and-revenge popularity after "I Spit on Your Grave." It's a technical hodgepodge, marred by lazy cinematography and a weak, single-note script. That said, Young's performance is notably twisted, and the film does attain a dreary and disconcerting atmosphere. It's not a gem, but it's also not quite as terrible as some may lead you to believe. 4/10.