Ruby, A Amante Diabólica

This oddball horror/possession flick was yet another '70's film made in the race to rip-off the super horror hit THE EXORCIST. However, this one is better than most because it was directed by cult favorite Curtis Harrington who pays special attention to plot, character, atmosphere and detail rather than reverting to spinning heads and vomiting pea soup. Furthermore, Piper Laurie(who won an Oscar nomination the previous year for her role in CARRIE) gives a marvellous performance in the title role, and Janit Baldwin is also impressive as Laurie's disturbed young daughter. Roger Davis(of DARK SHADOWS fame) also does well with his role as a psychologist who gets caught up in this eerie tale of the supernatural. BEWARE: Although most video editions of the film run fifteen minutes longer than the version that was originally released to theatres, they slash much of the gore(which wasn't really all that graphic to begin with) and substitute it with dull, pointless footage featuring supporting characters that really have no connection to the plot or action of the film. This version of the film is credited to the pseudonymous Allen Smithee and was apparantly the version that first aired on network television. If you are lucky enough to find the 84-minute version credited to Curtis Harrington, the film's original director, you"ll fare much better.

About a year after Brian DE palma's;Carrie,A low budget independent horror film came out called ruby(aka;blood ruby)starring Carrie co-star piper Laurie,who ill always know as Cathrine Martel of twin peaks. this was made by dimension pictures,who also gave us kingdom of the spiders with bill shatner.its a creepy little flick about a gangsters moll(Laurie)who runs a drive in theater,with her gangster associates. who gunned down her lover.well you can probably imagine the rest. well ruby's daughter(played by janit Baldwin)gets possessed by the ghost of Niki(ruby's dead lover)and bodies start piling up.Stuart Whitman plays ruby's new lover,who was one of the gunners,but does'nt seem like the type.anyway its sort of exorcist meets JD's revenge. with creepy music and sound effects.also starring;roger Davis from TV's dark shadows.and there's an interesting movie playing at ruby's drive -in.the 1958 classic;attack of the 50 foot woman,starring Allison Hayes. Curtis Harrington directed this little gem from 1977.harringtom who also directed the 1961 night tide with a young Dennis hopper,kudos to piper Laurie who i think played the part of ruby so well.and beautiful big eyed janit Baldwin(who was in gator bait with the late Claudia Jennings)as ruby's mute possessed daughter.awesome movie,check it out. 8 out of 10.recommended

Horror movie with a needlessly convoluted plot. In 1935 a gangster's girlfriend named Ruby (Piper Laurie) sees her boyfriend shot down dead. At that moment she gives birth to his baby (!!!) The movie cuts to 16 years later. Ruby is an alcoholic running a drive in and Leslie is her daughter--born a deaf mute (I think). For reasons never made totally clear she has the guys who shot her boyfriend dead working for her in the drive in! Then they start getting killed--it seems Ruby's ex is coming back for revenge...

If that synopsis sounds confusing you should see the movie! Curtis Harrington is a good director and I'm giving this a 4 just because it is well-directed...it just doesn't make a lot of sense. I saw the director's cut which was thought to be lost. Harrington was fired before the movie was finished. The producer took the movie, cut out all the violence and shot scenes with a totally different cast! That was the one released. Harrington complained about it and said his version was gone. Somehow it was found and that's the one I saw. If this is the cut the director approved I can only wonder how bad the reedited version was! Scenes seem to end before they're finished; the plot meanders all over the place; there are way too many unanswered questions still lingering at the end; Ruby is inexplicably always dressed like a madam; the special effects are poor; the deaths are very poorly done (and look REAL fake); the twist at the end comes out of nowhere--and doesn't make a lot of sense and, basically, this is BORING!

Laurie is a wonderful actress but she's terrible in this. She appears to be drunk most of the time--or looks like she wishes she were. Stuart Whitman walks through his role. Janit Baldwin is actually pretty good as Leslie. And Roger Davis (fondly remembered from "Dark Shadows") pops up about 30 minutes in as a parapsychologist. He has little to do with the plot except have Whitman provide some clumsy exposition to him. It's supposed to clear up the plot--it doesn't.

A dull, confusing mess. Not worth seeing at all. It's really a shame-the VCI DVD looks just beautiful.

One of those quick-and-dirty kind of killer B's made by small independents to cash in on box office smashes, RUBY tried to ride the coattails of Piper Laurie's Oscar-nominated turn in CARRIE, to which this movie owes more than just a nod of acknowledgment, along with THE EXORCIST and Brian De Palma's own CARRIE follow-up, THE FURY.

Laurie collaborates with cult-film favorite Curtis Harrington, (NIGHT TIDE, THE DEAD DON'T DIE) to try and lend credibility to the unique if unsteady story of a faded gun moll, just getting by living at a decrepit drive-in with her teenage daughter (Janit Baldwin, a good candidate for a game of "whatever happened to...?") Seems Mama Ruby had a little more to do with her gangster hubby's demise than she let on, but no worries...Daddy's little girl is going to get to the bottom of things in a way that CARRIE would definitely approve of...

This is a tough one to find on late night TV, and tougher still if you're looking for the original Harrington edit, which had been butchered and diluted over the years by different ham-handed distributors and program directors. Not a classic by any means, but for creepshow completists, Laurie is like a female Vincent Price...her performances are worth catching even in the most Gawd-awful dreck. And though RUBY is hardly a gem, it's not quite THAT bad, either.

Piper Laurie follows her success in Carrie with another supernatural horror, Ruby, in which she plays gangster's moll Ruby Claire, who, sixteen years after witnessing the cold-blooded shooting of Nicky (Sal Vecchio), the father of her unborn child, finds herself menaced by his vengeful spirit. Believing that he was betrayed by his lover, Nicky's ghost proceeds to bump off the ex-gangsters now employed at her drive-in theatre, using his mute daughter Leslie (Janit Baldwin) as a conduit, before finally confronting Ruby herself.

Opening with the wonderfully dreamlike murder of Nicky in a bayou, Curtis Harrington's Ruby is not without atmosphere and style, the director making effective use of his rundown drive-in location and its eerie, foggy swampland surroundings. Sadly, despite the creepy ambiance, several creative kills (ala The Omen)—hanging by film stock, impalement to movie screen, death by drinks vending machine—plus a couple of fun possession scenes clearly inspired by The Exorcist, the overly talky nature of the script prevents the film from being a complete success, the dull dialogue frequently bringing the action to a standstill.