User reviews

A Night To Dismember makes any Ed Wood movie look like a Michael Bay production. Even Doris Wishman, God bless her, knew this film was a stinky disaster. According to the commentary on the DVD I unfortunately bought, Wishman says half of her rushes where lost by the lab, so she had to compensate by adding a voice-over that 'explained' the 'story'. Uh-oh. Her cameraman on the film, C. Davis Smith, is also featured on the commentary and asks Wishman if the lab lost the best parts or the worst parts. After actually sitting through the entire 67 grueling minutes of this film, I can only pray they lost the best parts.

The worst/best part of this film is that the voice-over itself sounds like it was written by Gertrude Stein. It features a lot of run-on sentences and repetition. "It was the darkest night Vicki had ever seen. Why was it so dark? Vicki wondered in the darkness. Darkness was all around Vicki.. etc... etc..." and so on and so on for an hour. The commentary never stops. It makes you wish you rented Derek Jarman's Blue or better, The Beast Of Yucca Flats! The DVD commentary for this disc is priceless. Basically, it's Wishman and Smith arguing about who should be blamed for the outcome of the film. They finally decide to blame each other. Convenient, no? As I mentioned, this film is around 70 minutes long but it feels like the longest movie you've ever seen. It makes Tarkovsky's Andrey Rublyov seem like a John Woo film. If you make it to the end, you are a true Z-film freak and should be mailed a badge.

To be fair, this isn't Wishman's worst film; that remarkable honour would go to her next film, a remake of her earlier flick Satan Was A Lady (And they say Van Sant's Psycho was unnecessary)! If you want to see a good Wishman film watch "Nude On The Moon" or "Bad Girls Go To Hell" and leave this one alone, especially if you haven't seen a Wishman film before. It's not the one to start with, that's for sure.

This incomprehensible slasher movie was the last-known feature directed by cult filmmaker Doris Wishman. Making heavy use of voiceover narration, the film stars legend Samantha Fox, in a rare non-hardcore role, and deals with a cursed family and an escaped mental patient.

Gory and violent, the film is filled with bloody decapitations and eviscerations, as well as peculiar use of negative and solarization effects. The results are unbelievably bad, and it is hard to imagine that this 70-minute mess took five years to make.

My Rating:3/10

What can you say about a movie with a budget so very low they borrowed music from Andy Milligan's THE GHASTLY ONES? Doris Wishman has directed stuff like BAD GIRLS GO TO HELL, ANOTHER DAY ANOTHER MAN, NUDE ON THE MOON and the classic AMAZING TRANSPLANT. Okay, so she's no Ida Lupino you deffinitely won't sleep through any of her movies! A NIGHT TO DISMEMBER is as disjointed as the hacked up bodies the killer leaves behind. Why? Because some idiot at the processing lab either lost or erased about 34 minutes of film leaving Ms. Wishman to make some sense out of the 68 minutes she had left. Well she did, sort of. Vicki Kent (Samantha Fox) is released from a mental hospital several years after the unprovoked killing of two boys. Right away her brother and sister, who are jealous of her for no reason that I can figure out, decide to drive her crazy again and send her back to the hospital. Right about this same time several brutal murders take place and the finger of suspicion points to . . .guess who. Ah, but is she really guilty? hey, it's only a 68 minute movie so you won't have to wait long to find out. The gore effects are outrageous, an obvious dummy is barely tapped with a machete and the head falls off; hatchet hardly touches its victim for blood to spurt like a fountain; a woman's finger are cut off one by one but she is just making a fist and her hand is covered with stage blood. But it's things like this that make the movie fun. Also there is a detective narrating who describes things he could not possibly know. In one case he talks about what Vicki Kent is dreaming while he watches her through a window! Ridiculous? Yes! Fun? You bet! Worth seeing? What are you waiting for?

It might very well be a rare find - and the video copy I tracked down was of pretty poor quality - it is first and foremost dreadfully boring. Since apparently there was no money for a set sound recordist the whole film is 'explained' in voice-over...and still it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Literally everything about it is bad, and not even funny-bad or entertaining-bad, just plain boring bad. A complete waste of time.

B-movies don't tend to live by many rules, but here's something that usually seems to be true: the worse the movie, the better the back story. Movies can't be as bad as "A Night To Dismember" all on their own, surely there must be something I don't know. Thankfully, director Doris Wishman (often referred to as the female Ed Wood, how's that for an endorsement?) helps out on this matter. According to her a disgruntled lab employee destroyed almost half the footage of this movie, which I guess explains it...to a degree. I get now why the movie's such a jumbled mess and why the worst narrator in movie history constantly has to fill in blanks, but that's just the tip of the iceberg really. What's with the game show music during tension scenes? Why did they only bother to dub in about a third of the dialogue, making the actors look like total morons for most of the time? What's with all the unwatchable scrambled footage, was this accidentally sent to a meth lab? I'm sure that the original material, if it ever existed, could have made this movie into well, an actual movie, but I think it would have still been an absolutely terrible actual movie. Let's all just be grateful this was Wishman's only attempt at a slasher and stick to laughing at her nudie flicks.

Doris Wishman's "A Night to Dismember" is an ultra-cheap and sleazy slasher flick that simply has to be seen to believed.Wishman was an innovative low budget filmmaker.Her directing,editing and marketing of her films was all self-taught and almost all of her films were self-produced."A Night to Dismember" is her only full fledged horror film.It is also a big mess.The editing is beyond awful,the use of same location in several scenes is painfully obvious,the acting is amateurish and the story is illogical and confusing.Still the film is never boring and there are some fairly nasty scenes of gory carnage including ripped out hearts and chopped off fingers.Basically "A Night to Dismember" is about psychotic woman who gets out of an insane asylum and promptly starts butchering people around her.Give this low budget trash a look.4 out of 10.

According to director Doris Wishman, much of the negative for A Night To Dismember was wiped during processing by a disgruntled lab employee, forcing her to complete the film by re-editing the remaining material together with hastily shot new footage and a god-awful narrative to try and explain what the hell is going on (it fails: within minutes I hadn't a clue what was happening).

I'm not sure if I believe her story (after all, it's so easy to blame someone else for your own incompetent film-making), but if that's really the case, then what that lab guy did was unforgivable—I mean, he had the perfect opportunity to remove the entire thing from existence for good, but the douche-bag still left Wishman enough material to cobble together this abomination!

Anyway, whether Wishman's story is true or not, the fact remains that A Night To Dismember redefines the word 'awful', being a thoroughly incomprehensible, horribly dubbed mess of disjointed scenes that even a liberal sprinkling of unconvincing gore (beheadings, axe murders, finger chopping, a heart removed etc.,) and gratuitous nudity cannot improve.

Some call it 'surreal'; some describe it as 'so bad, it's good'; others call it 'a cult classic'. I call it s**t! Watch at your own risk.

I must have some kind of death wish to sit through Doris Wishman's "A Night To Dismember"...very rarely have I used the term "unwatchable" and meant it, but in this case it's absolutely true.

Where to begin? Wishman seems to have wanted to cook up some convoluted slasher-horror movie about insane girl released back into the care of her family only for mysterious killings to begin again. But what she ended up presenting was a muddled mess of catastrophic proportions, even by her standards. Apparently much of the footage shot was lost in a fire, so when the film was edited, large chunks were missing and lots of out-takes had to be substituted. Well, it sure does show.

Watching the movie proves to be a fractured, almost hallucinatory experience. Not a single shot has any location-sourced or ambient sound, all the soundtrack is made up of music, over-dubbed dialogue/narration, and slapped on sound effects. It's like watching a silent movie that has been given a hasty "make-do" soundtrack by someone else. In fact it's like watching a film with the sound off, in a room full of improv actors who are making up the lines as they go along, and bashing pots together to try and make matching sounds to go with the on-screen action. Then again, very few of the lines are actually spoken by the characters. A narration goes on for the entire length of the movie, explaining everything that is happening – however due to the incoherent nature of the film it's the ONLY way of understanding what's happening! And the music! Oh dear...Every type of stock music is laid on with a trowel, from lounge jazz to rock to Gothic chimes, and none of it EVER matches the mood of the on screen action. Maybe Wishman just threw whatever she had handy onto the turntable. And if this wasn't bad enough, the film jumps, cuts, jumps ,and jumps again, in fact every few minutes there is an abrupt change of music or lines of dialogue are abruptly cut off. And I do mean EVERY few minutes. Actually there are a few scenes when the music switches styles every 2 or 3 seconds.

There's all the usual Wishman madness such as shots of feet, hideous interior décor, backs of people's heads, someone moving position and the camera not realising they aren't even in shot any more, etc, etc. In a new level of excitement, we get close ups of people lifting slices of cheese off a dinner plate. Some scenes look as though they were shot twice or even three times – and all the shots are included in the film, so its like some horrible demonic rewind button that forces you to see everything multiple times. Oh and before I forget to mention it, about 30-40 percent of the movie is out of focus.

OK OK, I know there are some Doris Wishman fans out there who find this all part of her peculiar charm. The only other movies I have seen by her are the two Chesty Morgan films, and both of these are hilarious and highly recommended to any bad cinema junkie. So I do see the appeal of her unique style. But watching "A Night To Dismember" was nothing more than a trial. By the time I had reached the 15 minute mark I had had more than I could stand, but by some sheer force of will I managed to sit through the whole thing. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT try this at home. Utterly, utterly, mind-blowingly bad.

Poor psychotic Vicki Kent seems to be plagued by an ancestral curse that drives her and her family members to kill. Upon being released from a psychiatric institute after killing two neighborhood boys, Vicki soon picks up the hatchet and gets back to dismembering her family line.

Doris Wishman's "A Night to Dismember" is a true landmark in bad filmmaking-it's hard to say whether it is a result of the filmmakers' ineptitude or the troubled production history (which included multiple reels being destroyed, causing Wishman to rework the film with stock footage and an entirely new plot grafted onto the pre-existing footage). In any case, it has gone down in the annals of trash cinema for good reason.

I cannot pretend this is a worthwhile film for most moviegoers, but as a pure oddity, it is required viewing for hardened slasher fans. Pornographic actress Samantha Fox portrays the insane Vicki, and is surrounded by a group of equally inept actors. The entire film is narrated with a documentary-like voiceover from a policeman who investigated the crimes, and there is virtually no dialogue present; what is there is badly-dubbed and only accentuated by sloppy editing, bizarre montages, and amateurish special effects for good measure.

In any event, I found the film entertaining on a primal level, only because it feels like a fever dream pulled from the head of a madman. The fact that Wishman even finished it is something of a minor triumph, and it is weirdly amusing in all its badness. For the casual moviegoing majority, it is a laughable disaster, and even hardened fans of slasher films and camp trash will find elements of it almost too absurd; but midway through, I couldn't help but feel there was some earnestness behind it, and the bones of what could have been an at least average psycho-slasher flick. The result is many ranks below average of course, but it is a fun romp for people who find entertainment, genuine interest, or pure comedy in cheapjack horror. You have been warned. 5/10.

A NIGHT TO DISMEMBER may not be one of them, but jesus, I honestly can't think of another film so disjointed, so visually unattractive, so inane and illogical beyond belief as this train wreck on film. So, because of that I strongly suggest anyone who seeks out the macabre, twisted, odd and unusual to do whatever it takes to see this movie. Thinking back, I'm almost sure it has to do with a woman released from an insane asylum and a whole lot of elevator music and narration. A detective narrates the entire film (!), telling us things that have absolutely no relation to what we are actually seeing. He stumbles and stutters his lines, coming across like an 8 year old with dyslexia. It's actually very funny. Occasionally, the actors in the film do get to speak (albeit they are HORRIBLY dubbed.) Much of the time when they are speaking, we aren't shown the actors' faces, rather their feet, a couch or a house plant! Oh yes, like any Doris Wishman film we get plenty of shots of people's feet. She must've had a foot fetish, like 99% of America I suppose. Ok, I'm trying to give you the plot of this car accident but it is physically impossible. Woman gets out of loony bin, her brother and sister try and drive her back there (for what reason, I have NO idea), a few gory murders take place (in the HG Lewis gory way) and before you know it, this 70 min. mess is over and you wonder to yourself JUST WHAT IN THE HELL YOU WATCHED. And just in case the movie itself isn't surreal or bizarre enough, Wishman throws in a couple of dream sequences to REALLY throw you off. In one dream, a woman is slashed and knifed to death about 100 times, slashing and knifing, over and over and over.. She moans like she's having an orgasm. Speaking of orgasm, A NIGHT TO DISMEMBER probably has a budget much lower than your average porn. Technically speaking, THIS IS UNDOUBTEDLY the worst motion picture made. Point blank. But, I found enough enjoyment to watch it multiple times. It's funnier than most comedies, and makes not a lick of sense that it BEGS to be watched. A true spectacle.

A Night To Dismember is one of the weirdest films ever made. It's terrible and makes no sense, yet it's one you which you cannot stop watching. Almost all of the dialogue comes from the voiceover of a detective who tells us the story of a cursed family. Members of this family are always finding themselves dead and one of the girls of the family comes out of a mental institution only to have more family members end up dead. This is one of the worst made films of all time and yet I find it compelling at times. It mostly looks horrible, there's too much gore most of the time, and the acting is atrocious and yet it is a film not to be missed.

A really bad attempt at an independent horror film from Doris Wishman. This has no real plot and is just a jumble of nightmarish sequences in which a series of people are hacked and slashed by an escaped psycho. It's laughably poor throughout, totally inept from beginning to end, and even the gore attempts are so clumsy that they make next to no impression on the viewer.

Legendary exploitation filmmaker Doris Wishman fumbles her way through this inane ode to the slasher film. It's an oddly interesting mess. One does have to give Wishman credit for trying to make something out of nothing, with a bunch of ridiculous scenes and a whole lot of truly terrible acting connected by a voice-over narration. The splatter is absolutely wonderful in its utter tackiness and excess, the music is often wholly inappropriate, and there are a sufficient amount of scenes and moments that are sure to have cult horror aficionados laughing out loud. (A case in point? That decapitation sequence.)

Porn star Samantha Fox is the only "actor" here of anything resembling name value, as she plays Vicki, a young woman fresh out of an insane asylum. It seems that her brother Billy (William Szarka) is trying to send her right back there, and while this is going on, horrific axe murders take place. The intrepid detective on the case, O'Malley, provides all the exposition with his narration.

Wishman also co-edited this, along with Larry Marinelli, and one can only imagine how that process must have gone down, with the two of them assembling *something* resembling a story out of a bunch of spare parts. One good thing is that "A Night to Dismember" is often just surreal, and incompetent, enough to be utterly fascinating in spite of itself. It could conceivably bore some viewers, but others will undoubtedly find it quite funny, and endearingly dumb.

Five out of 10.

A Night To Dismember is probably one of the worst slasher flicks in existence. I've seen loads, but this one really takes the crown. Perhaps it was the editing problems that made it so unwatchable, but as far as I'm concerned it would have been awful even without these. There is no passion whatsoever, from the director or the actors, which ultimately leads to a dull film. Most low-budget slasher flicks are entertaining in some way or another because the director was a fan of horror films. Not so in this case. The only remotely "decent" scene is when the girl gets stabbed to death in her dreams, and she moans erotically as if she's enjoying it. I didn't keep watching for much longer than this because the film was frying my brain.

All self-respecting horror fans should avoid this as it's not good on any level. This and another awful film called Blood Shack are at the top of my list of worst horror films.

Director: Doris Wishman, Cast: Samantha Fox, Saul Meth, Miriam Meth

Slasher film starring Samantha Fox (not the singer)about the Kent family that all get murdered or dismembered by some deranged person. This film had the potential to be the most notorious film of all time for gore and violence but it is severely hindered by its low budget production. It is too cheap looking to be shocking or scary.It looks as if it was made by a film student! The movie was filmed without sound and the sound was dubbed in later. It has almost no dialog. Most of the film is narrated by the person playing the detective.

If one takes this film for what it is, a low budget slasher film, it is actually a fun little cult flick. It is a great film for fans of rare underground exploitation films. Doris Wishman made a lot of low budget exploitation and nudie films going back to the 1960's. The Elite DVD has a funny commentary with Wishman and her cinematographer.

Famed lame-film maker Ed Wood doesn't have anything on DORIS WISHMAN! This celluloid train wreck is apt proof too.

Girl returns home from the loony-bin and someone begins to butcher the people around her. Who is the killer.... and will we care?

Hilariously awful slasher is a doozy from beginning to end. All the characters are dubbed (by about two people), the editing is completely chaotic, the gore FX extremely cheap, and the plot is nearly incoherent. Word has it that half of Wishman's shot footage for the film was destroyed and she had to go back and re-edit and re-write the film with the remaining footage. The film is just sloppy enough for it to be true.

The only good thing about A Night to Dismember is its memorable title and an amusing DVD commentary by director Wishman and her camera man. The bickering conversations between those two are worth more than a few laughs! The movie itself though is so terrible it's amazing that it was ever released.

BOMB out of ****

For those of you who will not enjoy the surreal experience of a film completely composed of dubbed out-takes and low-budget gore without the companionship of certain silhouettes, there is hope! Simply rent the DVD version of this film and listen to the "commentary" by director Doris Wishman and her cinematographer, Chuck. They had me in stitches all the way through. It is obvious that neither one could follow the plot, or really figure out what to say to an audience about their opus, so they spend most of the time insulting each other and trying to remember who's apartment each scene was shot in. Doris: why won't you answer poor Billy Szarka's letter?

Wishman's attempt at making a psycho-thriller fails completely.

The plot is hilarious: A girl returns from the asylum after five years. Her brother makes various attempts to make her go mad again. In the end it turns out that her (older?) sister is maybe not to be trusted.

The story is "told" by a private dick who most of the time sits at his desk doing nothing but telling us what time it is!

The most amazing thing about the movie is the soundtrack: Funky-jazzy-whatever music is playing all the time, ie. only very rarely do you actually hear the characters utter anything but one syllable words (noo, aargh, don't!). Actually the use of music is too far out - and the only reason the film gets a five/ten rating from me!

Another good thing to say about the movie is that if you really like movies that are so bad that they're funny - you definitely have to go and see this one (and "zeta one" - another of my favourites).