Dementia 13 (1963)
Grade: C+
Written and directed by a young Francis Ford Coppola (and produced by Roger Corman), this dark tale of murder and madness at an Irish castle has a promising first act and plenty of style, but ultimately falls victim to its own lack of substance.
The plot, briefly sketched, is thus: we have Louise Haloran -- played by a fetchingly evil Luana Anders -- a sociopathic golddigger who's married to a member of a rich Irish family. He dies in the opening scene, but since that would effectively disinherit her, she conceals the body and travels to the family's castle, where her husband's brothers and mother live.
Louise's plan seems to be to win the favor of the mother, who's haunted by the memory of her daughter who drowned as a child; there's also a hint that Louise might be planning to drive her mad. However, those plans are abruptly derailed...
Envisioned as a Psycho ripoff to make some easy money for Corman, Dementia 13 certainly shares a few elements with the Hitchcock film, including the ballsy step of (spoiler alert!) killing off its apparent protagonist early in the movie. And killing off Janet Leigh's character, Marion Crane, worked brilliantly for Psycho, but by trying to pull off the same gimmick, Dementia 13 puts itself in a double bind.
On the one hand, Louise Haloran's death doesn't have a fraction of the emotional freight that Marion Crane's murder did in Psycho, since Crane was a fundamentally good person who was trying to make amends for her bad behavior, whereas Louise is a malignant narcissist with no hint of a conscience. On the other hand, Louise is also the most interesting character in the movie by far, and we were looking forward to seeing her toxic manipulations of the other characters play out.
Instead, she gets axed (quite literally), and what's left is little more than 40 minutes of tortured brooding with an occasional murder thrown in.
Still, it's mediocre material in the hands of a brilliant director -- or one who became brilliant, anyway -- so the 75-odd minutes of Dementia 13's runtime don't have the same dreary effect as, say, The Last Man on Earth. But the meaningless plot, the one-note affect, and the relentless lack of Irish accents keep Dementia 13 squarely in the lower tier.
The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues (1955)
Grade: D
If you're jonesing for a monster movie with a smorgasbord of stupid clichés about radioactivity and meaningless nuclear jargon, look no further than The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues. This lousy effort stars Kent Taylor as a scientist who seems to have a knack for anticipating famous monikers, as evidenced by his real name (Ted Stevens) and the pseudonym he adopts early in the movie (Ted Baxter) when he's trying to work incognito.
Several bodies, charred and contaminated with radioactivity, have washed ashore, and Ted's trying to figure out why. His investigation leads him to a local college's marine biology department, where Professor King (Michael Whalen), a brilliant scientist, is conducting mysterious research that involves atoms 'n' stuff. Naturally, said scientist has a beautiful, young, single daughter (Cathy Downs) -- don't they all?
Unfortunately Ted's attempt at going undercover is about as effective as a water barrel (or the middle bush, or the West Midlands). Not only does the government agent assigned to the case quickly figure out who he is, but Ted fails to realize that when you're a prominent researcher within a very narrow field, there's a good chance your peers will recognize you...especially if you put your picture on the cover of your book (which Prof. King owns). Still, no one seems to mind Ted's deception.
Most of what ensues follows the usual schlocky routines. There's mumbo-jumbo about activating hydrogen isotopes and death rays, there's a forced romantic subplot between Ted and the daughter, and there's a monster that's basically just some guy in a silly costume à la Attack of the Giant Leeches. If you can't guess how this ends, right down to the vapid moral epilogue, then you haven't seen many of these movies.
A small saving grace is the professor's secretary, Wanda (Helen Stanton), a sad-eyed, sour-faced Debbie Downer of a woman who's in an amusingly abusive relationship with...well, pretty much everyone in the movie. Almost every word directed toward her is unkind or menacing, and it's not really clear why, but she certainly looks the part of the perennial doormat.
A small saving grace is the professor's secretary, Wanda (Helen Stanton), a sad-eyed, sour-faced Debbie Downer of a woman who's in an amusingly abusive relationship with...well, pretty much everyone in the movie. Almost every word directed toward her is unkind or menacing, and it's not really clear why, but she certainly looks the part of the perennial doormat.
Anyway, there's no reason to watch The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues, unless you have a thing for bullet bras, hilariously futile attempts to shoot day-for-night, and/or men who wear suits when they go boating.
But at least it's not excruciatingly dull, and people get burned up, blown up, and Britney'd.
But at least it's not excruciatingly dull, and people get burned up, blown up, and Britney'd.
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