bensonmum2 Mobster Nicky Rocco is gunned down in the middle of a Louisiana swamp. With his dying breath, he vows revenge on all of those who did him wrong – including pregnant girlfriend Ruby (Piper Laurie). Some 16 year later, Ruby lives at and operates an out-of-the-way drive-in with some of the former gang members she's given jobs to. Also in Ruby's household is Nicky's teenage daughter, Leslie – a very troubled girl. Things start to get really weird when Nicky's former associates begin dying horrible, unexplained deaths. Leslie's demeanor also begins to change until one fateful night when her body is fully possessed by her long dead and wronged father. Through Leslie, Nicky repeats his vow of vengeance.Overall, as my wife would say, Ruby is pretty much hot garbage. While the movie has its fair share of reasonably spooky moments, there's too much here that I didn't care for to give the film a positive rating. The plot is a mess, the dialogue is often silly, and there are long patches of the movie where nothing much happens. It wasn't until the final 10-15 minutes that anything really peaked my interest. The acting is all over the place. Piper Laurie chews enough scenery to choke on. Her overacting really got old. The usually reliable Stuart Whitman, in contrast, plays his part so understated that Laurie literally runs him over. No one in the cast really stood out to me. Also, the film is supposedly set in 1951. I've seen a number of goofs listed on IMDb about the film's setting. My issue is that it just doesn't look like 1951. The way Ruby was filmed, it has a distinct 1970s look to it that no manner of old cars or old clothes can hide. I don't know any way to say it other than I never felt like I was watching a movie set in 1951.Finally, the movie we see projected on the drive-in screen is Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. It says a lot about my feelings on Ruby when I say that I would have much rather been watching Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.

Red-Barracuda Despite its reception, which seems to have been quite negative from what I have read, Ruby made an absolutely huge profit at the box office. Made for $600,000 it went on to rake in $16million. That's serious commercial success for sure. But it appears to have been one of those movies which made big waves on initial release but then kind of fell off the radar immediately afterwards. In 1935 a man is gunned down by his fellow gangsters. Sixteen years later his wife, now the mother to a disturbing mute girl, runs a drive-in theatre that specialises in horror movies. She employs all the men responsible for the earlier murder and soon they all start winding up dead, victims of a mysterious supernatural entity. It soon transpires that the young daughter is possessed by her dead father's spirit and he's out for some serious pay-back.This one was directed by Curtis Harrington who was responsible for the subtle off-kilter chiller Night Tide (1961) which featured a young Dennis Hopper in an unusually restrained role. Ruby is a decidedly more standard horror offering combining elements of a trio of big-hitting horror hits of the day including Carrie (1976) with Piper Laurie as a demented mother, The Exorcist (1973) with the spider-walking possessed young girl and The Omen (1976) with its series of elaborate death scenes - victims are impaled high up on cinema screens, choked to death on film reels, hung from trees and left bloodied in...a Coke machine. It's a combination that basically works though, with enough incidents occurring to ensure it's never a boring watch. I think its possession movie element is the one that works best though, with Janit Baldwin perfectly cast in the role of the demented daughter. With her saucer eyes and creepy smile she is genuinely unsettling and the scenes with her possessed by her father are actually kind of scary. Perhaps if the various death scenes had been executed with a little more verve and detail, the film would be better but the weird killings still do add a further macabre detail to the overall whole never-the-less. The drive-in setting is actually a pretty good one and gives the film a bit of distinct character and I did enjoy the interspersing of the featured film Attack of the 50 Foot Woman into things even if it was a movie released seven years after events depicted on screen were supposed to be happening - ah, the trifling details film-makers could so easily get away with in the days before the internet! Anyway, events do dovetail to an ending which was a little odd. I don't think the general idea of it was especially bad – quite decent in actual fact – but it was just far, far too abrupt. All-in-all though, this forgotten box-office smash is actually well worth seeking out if you like 70's horror movies, it's a little ropey in places for sure but it does have a bit of atmosphere, originality and legitimately scary moments.

ashley wetherall Ruby is one of those film that should be filed under so dumb its fun. Made by the great cult director Curtis Harrington Ruby makes very little sense in the terms of plot but for some reason and god only knows why is very entertaining.The story line goes something like this. In the Mid thirties gangster bad boy Nicky Rocco is shot dead in front of his pregnant girl friend Ruby. His assassins are members of his own gang. As he dies Nicky swears vengeance on his killers as his girlfriend Ruby goes into labour. From then the movie moves on 16 or so years with Ruby running a drive in movie theatre that shows films that haven't been made yet? (Attack of the 50 foot woman was made in 1958) but who cares.But guess what, shes hired all her dead boyfriends down on there luck killers to run the place.. Why.. Who really knows. But here's what we do know. Something very nasties going to happen to them. Then theirs the fact that ruby now has a mute doe eyed daughter who acts very strangely and some old blind dude in a wheel chair who live with Ruby.The film is quite incoherent, so you might ask yourself why is it so much fun... Well its down to another great unhinged performance from Piper Laurie in the title role. Add to that some great character actors to back her up including the ever reliable Stuart Whitman and Janit Baldwin as Ruby strange daughter and you have a gem of b movie with enough plot holes to drive a bus through. just enjoy the crazy plot don't take it seriously.

moonspinner55 After ending a 15-year retirement from films to do Brian De Palma's "Carrie" (in which she was Oscar-nominated), Piper Laurie inexplicably turned up the very next year in this low-rent schlocker directed by Curtis Harrington. Needless to say, she didn't net another nomination. It's an abhorrent concoction about an aging gangster's moll who runs a drive-in movie theater, and Laurie gives a flat, depressed performance. Turns out the gangster's ghost now haunts the drive-in, and he may be responsible for possessing a young girl (Janit Baldwin, forced into imitating Linda Blair). Mixture of scares, satire, comedic elements, and bloody violence makes for one cruddy movie. NO STARS from ****