Inn of the Damned

Oh my goodness gracious, this one sets the standard for the worst movies of all time. I haven't seen many of those on the worst 500 list but how this turkey didn't make it is anyone's guess. Dumbest food/sex scene in history. Cliched slomo shots - hey this baby's got it all!

I watched an old VHS copy of this film. The box suggested a Night of the Western Dead, but the film is actually an Australian Western. Turns out director Terry Bourke is pretty good at it. Its about a hotel run by Dame Judith Anderson and her husband(?) weirdo doing the Psycho hotel number. Alex Cord plays an American bounty hunter looking for a sex pervert that is on the run. His story is the most interesting. The film could have left out the hotel thingy-story. Made in 1974. I'm recommending the film as a time filler. Please try to get it on DVD, as the old Paragon VHS is hard to find and kind of hard to watch: the picture is very grainy.

It is getting a bit dated now and our view of films changes over time but the first time I ever saw this film I could NOT believe it had been made in Australia - I didn't think we were that good. I first saw it 30 years ago but still have a copy and am watching it again. There is more sex than I remembered - how odd - but there is some good acting and great scenery of paddocks shot around Camden. These are probably housing estates now.

I found the punch line quite moving and still do. The acting is good and quite professional. On the whole, it is still a scary movie without the use of cgi or special effects.

INN OF THE DAMNED is about a seemingly normal, older couple who run the quiet country establishment of the title. In actuality, they're a pair of homicidal psychopaths with a unique, ingenious method for dispatching their prey.

Many deaths ensue before someone gets wise to the deadly duo, resulting in a final conflict and the revelation of the demented couple's twisted motive.

If you enjoy gruesome tales with just enough naughtiness -bath time!- to keep things interesting, then this is perfect for your next late-night viewing...

Read anything about "Inn of the Damned" and you'll doubtlessly come across a description of the way the movie was intended as a one-hour long episode of a TV series that was to begin with the director's earlier "Night of Fear". The TV show idea was scrapped when the ABC failed to pick it up, and so Bourke expanded his concept into an almost two hour long movie.

Read any REVIEW of the movie, however, and you'll read about the movie's strange, unsuccessful melding of two genres: the western and the horror movie.

What you WON'T read is what a fantastic short horror movie was buried in "Inn of the Damned"'s almost two hour length. It features the fulfilment of the promise Bourke showed in "Night of Fear", with some genuinely shocking, disturbing, and nail-biting moments.

Alas, these all come too late for those of us with short attention spans. The movie doesn't really try to mix the two genres; it starts as a tepid horror movie, has about an hour long preamble as a middling western, and then goes into full-on horror mode. The horror story could've been told in any time period.

The movie jolts us back into its REAL story with a strange subplot about two young women who stay at the titular inn who hate each other, but the older has sapphic feelings for the younger. Some would say that this is just more bizarre preamble before the movie gets going again, but I see it as a fantastic beginning of the superior and worth the price of admission, final act. It supplies us with nudity and lesbianism, yes, but also a macabre subplot that comes to an even more macabre end. And so the end begins in earnest.

I scoffed when I saw the "Hitchcockian" quote on the video cover. I was wrong. The master would have been proud of the movie's suspenseful, shocking and disturbing final moments. It's just too bad you have to wait so late in the movie to get there.