Cinemafou The 1955 film is an abstract expressionist take on a dark and disturbing subject. Not for all tastes, but I find it entrancing. A masterpiece. The original sound track is brilliant, with music that was composed by George Antheil, an American avant-garde composer who lived from 1900 to 1959.Then some knuckleheads bought the rights to the film and decided it needed some histrionic narration thrown in here and there. The narration is a distracting annoyance and detracts seriously from the film. Many people on archive.org complained about this and despaired over what could be done. Several people claimed the narrator is Ed McMahon, the intro man for the old Johnny Carson show. I don't know how they came to this conclusion. One enterprising person created his own electronic musical soundtrack, but that eliminated all the original audio. So how can you watch it with the original soundtrack but without that imbecilic narration? I found a way.I ported the video file to an audio WAV file (using freeware tools) and opened it in Audacity, a wonderful tool for audio editing, also available as freeware. Whenever that annoying voice appeared, I selected that portion of the audio stream and set it to silent. Then I copied a nearby portion of sound from the original sound track equivalent in time and pasted it over the silent portion. I used VirtualDub (more freeware) to apply the modified sound track to the video. The resulting sound track is narration free! We have the original Dementia back! Find it at archive.org.

ironhorse_iv Incorporating elements of the avant-grade expressionism with Hollywood film noir, this exploitation film has everything you can wish for, in a smart horror movie. In my opinion, this movie is way underrated by critics. I doubt, they can comprehend the dark depths of a demented mind — the demons that lurk at the center of the human soul! This movie deserve more praise. Directed by John Parker, an aspiring filmmaker, Dementia was originally supposed to be a 10 minute short film; something that Parker could maybe use as a resume piece. Instead, the movie runtime was push to a full hour, due to all the clever story-telling. This was a very ambitious project with an interesting premise. It introduced elements that hadn't been portrayed before, such as constructing a potentially silent film with sound, but no dialogue whatsoever. It dared to mix fantasy with reality filled with suggestive violence and psycho-sexual imagery. Very few films did that in those days. The movie was essentially a surreal tour of 1950s-era beatnik culture mixed with old school German Expressionism. Dementia was also full of classic film noir elements, such as deceitful characters, murder, guilt, horror and inner demons, all mixed into one nightmarish watch. In many ways, this movie remind me of Orson Welles's 1958's Touch of Evil. Who knows! Its might have influence it. After all, both films are shot in Venice Beach, California. Still, I love Dementia's use of low angle shots and shadows on walls, all set in a hallucinatory narrative of crime and pursuit. The atmosphere created by cinematographer William C. Thompson, conjured through bleak-looking streets and unnerving music was frightening. Then there are also the simple images - shadows growing and shrinking, gaunt faces, sharp contrasts between lights and darks that could give you nightmares. It's sad, that John Parker, never directed another film, after time, because in my opinion, he could have been in the same levels of a David Lynch, David Fincher, and Stanley Kubrick. The movie tells the story of a nocturnal murderous prowling of a young woman (Adrienne Barrett) haunted by homicidal guilt. Produced in 1953, the movie was banned in many states like New York for years, before getting release in 1955, due to its risky sexual and violent nature. While, tame, compare to today's horror films, I can understand why the movie would receive a scant distribution, when it came out. A prostitute or what seem like a call girl, running through alleyways clutching a bloody hand to her breast was indeed controversy in uber conservatism 1950s. Some people, saw the movie as a threat to the accepted gender roles of the time, because the movie show a woman, taking up arms against the cruelty of abusive men, rather than a woman asking a honest man to fight for their honor. Some people thought, the movie was offensive to women, because it show, women in a bad light. After all, there been countless amount of women that went abusive relationship, only to live, somewhat normal lives. Other, thoughts, that the movie misjudging showcase, that any resistance from women, toward their own abusive, or own objectification is the cause of mental illness, not self-defensive. Whatever, was the reason, the movie had to be cut to fit in the film standards of the time. John Parker trim back, most of objectionable scenes in order to get this past the censors. Not only that, he muted sounds from some of the film's most disturbing scenes. What came from this recut of Dementia, was a 55 minute version. That version was picked up by Exploitation Pictures and retitled, as 'Daughter of Horror'. Since the original, had no spoken dialogue, the producers felt like, the story might be, too hard to follow, so in Daughter of Horror, they added a wildly arch, throaty narration by then, unknown, voice-actor, Ed McMahon. While, Ed McMahon narration might be cheesy or campier. He wasn't bad in the role. He gave the film, somewhat a Rod Serling's Twilight Zone, like narrative feel to the film. I didn't mind it. The film's musical score is by avant-garde composer George Antheil, and vocalized by Marni Nixon. The Theremin-like vocals eerie moaning is creepy, but somewhat annoying after a while. I think the movie might have over-played it. Jazz musician Shorty Rogers can be seen and heard performing in a night club scene. It was pretty neat. The film is also smart. The movie is indeed clever, take a Freudian approach - the flashbacks taking place in the grave, the father imagery as the cop, sexual symbols, all wonderful. The film is essentially full of Freudian symbolism and motifs, such as the cigar as a phallic symbol or the sweaty rich man (Bruno Ve Sota) devouring chicken as a sexual metaphor. The acting is pretty good. Adrienne Barrett is perfectly cast as the troubled, sinister, smirking vamp. The supporting cast is alright for the most part. Still, I kinda didn't like Ben Roseman's goofy little smile. The guy, never once, seem scary. The special effects are dated, but it's still eerily looking. While, the wave looks fake, it does have some merit. The film has been compared to 1920's silent film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari & 1943's Meshes of the Afternoon, due to its portrayal of an insane mind from the "inside out". Dementia is perhaps most famous for its appearance in 1958's The Blob where, it's the movie playing in the movie theater when the Blob strikes. While, the original movie is rare to find, Kino has a DVD that has both version in one and restored nearly in a near-pristine condition. Also featured among the supplements is the essay "Dementia: A Case Study," a well-researched and informative production history supplemented by reproductions of original letters, contracts, and industry documents. It's worth checking out. Overall: Dementia is an acid mind trip. A great psychology thriller, worth every minute. You have to be out of mind, not to see it!

edwoodie If Ed Wood had gone to film school he might have made this quirky howler. The graveyard scenes & omniscient narrator are standard Wood tropes. This short film is a mash up of Freudian psycho babble w/classic noir cinematography, graphic violence, overwrought acting & some nifty camera angles. There's even a reverse tracking shot through a window that Hitchcock would use in Psycho 5 yrs later. I'm not saying he stole it from this movie, but.... Throw in a severed hand, a jazz combo, and Orson Welles' double. If it really is Ed McMahon narrating, it's a bonus. That's Marni Nixon doing a 'theremin' yodel on the soundtrack! (Was she cheaper than a real theremin?) The "actors" look like an Ed Wood casting call of 'street people'; everyone looks garish & homely. Granted, some of the on-location night scenes shot in seedy, downtown wherever are so dark you can't see the action, but kudos for the effort. Too bad the print is pretty worn; there was some real artistic intent behind this deadpan attempt at horror. Worth seeing at least once, it's unique, nutty & fun.

MARIO GAUCI I first heard of this when I stumbled upon reviews of the Kino double-feature DVD (more on this later) and was especially intrigued by the fact that legendary writer-director Preston Sturges was among its admirers. Then I caught the film itself via the Internet and liked it – albeit watched on a very tiny screen; however, it took me a number of years to purchase the "Special Edition" disc and only managed to re-acquaint myself with the movie in time for this Halloween marathon. DEMENTIA is not your typical horror film – a succession of nightmarish visuals blending noir, psychology, exploitation and outright surrealism (in fact, some of the images here admirably evoked that notorious Luis Bunuel/Salvador Dali collaboration UN CHIEN ANDALOU [1929]!); equally notable, though, is its depiction of the current jazz/beatnik scene highlighted by George Antheil's nerve-jangling score. The ultra low-budget involved (being an independent production photographed by William C. Thompson, later responsible for Edward D. Wood Jr.'s infamous PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE [1959]!) and the inexperience of writer-director John J. Parker (this proved to be his only completed film) gave the whole affair a unique combination of raw emotions and oneiric visuals that were augmented by the complete lack of dialogue (at least in its original intended form). Perhaps unsurprisingly, DEMENTIA encountered several censorship problems (delineated in the accompanying essay – the objections raised by the various boards are quite hilarious, none more so than when dubbing the film "grist for the Communist mill"! – which is the centerpiece of the DVD supplements) and would only find sizable distribution through Jack H. Harris in 1957…after the picture was slightly trimmed (eliminating its more gruesome passages), an over-the-top commentary (ghoulishly-voiced by Ed McMahon) added and retitled DAUGHTER OF HORROR! Trivia: this less satisfactory bastardized version was actually the Midnight 'Spook Show' being screened during the memorable climax of Harris' own best-known production, THE BLOB (1958; which I opted to revisit the very next day on its account), while some of the locations would recognizably serve as backdrop for Orson Welles' no less sleazy and expressionistic masterwork TOUCH OF EVIL (1958)!