Dementia 13A young
Francis Coppola was given the job of directing this moody low-budget chiller after begging producer
Roger Corman for the opportunity to reuse the sets for another film which Corman was shooting in Ireland. The story centers on the dysfunctional Haloran family, who live in a state of perpetual sorrow in a spooky Irish castle. Still mourning the death of her young daughter Kathleen -- who drowned in the lake seven years ago -- Lady Haloran (
Ethne Dunn) tortures herself regularly by visiting the girl's grave (when she's not shrieking and collapsing in anguish every five minutes). When daughter-in-law Louise Haloran (
Luana Anders) loses her husband to a heart attack, she manages to conceal the body for fear of being cut out of Lady Haloran's will. To further complicate matters, a mysterious interloper begins prowling the grounds with an axe to grind... a very big axe. This enjoyable, quirky psycho-thriller is enlivened by Coppola's inventive camera setups, atmospheric locations and
Patrick Magee's over-the-top performance as the leering family doctor. Despite some ragged editing (probably not Coppola's doing), this has relatively high production values for a spare-change Corman project. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
Invitation to HellThis minor made-for-TV effort from horror auteur
Wes Craven is one of the oddest attempts at seriously blending supernatural horror and science fiction elements, which amounts to a muddled but amusing failure. The convoluted plot involves scientist
Robert Urich's experiments with a new spacesuit designed to detect non-human lifeforms for a proposed expedition to Venus. When a sultry succubus (
Susan Lucci, who was born for such a role) begins exerting her demonic influence on the members of a country club -- including
Urich's wife and children -- he dons the completed suit for a literal journey into hell itself to rescue them.
Craven's skill manages to elevate this loopy premise slightly above the level of pure nonsense, but low production values and the constraints of TV censorship prevent it from being adequately explored. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
