Ruby

The heyday of the mob. Being an entertainer of that time was always the fuss. But when people go legit, it's always going to be good. For "Ruby", it's not that way. Ruby Claire(Piper Laurie) is a gun-moll who is pregnant watches in horror when her mobster boyfriend gets gunned down by his own crew. Years later, Ruby owns a drive-in movie and some of the former members of the mob work with her. Her daughter Leslie(Janit Baldwin) is 16 and mute, lives with her. One by one, members of the mob suddenly died. The spirit of the slain boyfriend seeks revenge on the crew. So he uses the daughter as a vessel for vengeance. This movie is like a cross between "Carrie" and "The Exorcist". Only tamer. The cast of the movie are great. The special effects was spot on. Enjoyable to say the least. 2 out of 5 stars

After a setup that kills her husband, Ruby a gangster wife has to raise her daughter alone, or maybe not. She have her ganglike family to support her. Then people start getting dying around her. Is it ghost, a crazed murderer, or could be; he dead husband seeking revenge.

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.

I did not know this Curtis Harrington's film, and I have seen all the others he did. Such a shame.... This one is a real tribute to the fifties drive in movie theaters. And I guess Piper Laurie was chosen for her performance one year earlier in Brian De Palma's CARRIE, another horror yarn, and this time at a bigger, larger scale. A pure masterpiece, where she also was the mother of a "possessed" daughter. But this one, directed by a very gifted Curtis Harrington - some kind of William Castle's heir - is very enjoyable, gritty, riveting, and offers us a very good ending, which seemd to be in total opposition to the director's will. For once, the will of a producer over a director satisfies me !!!!

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.