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Dementia
Daughter of Horror
USA 1955
produced by
John Parker, Ben Roseman (associate), Bruno VeSota (associate) for H.K.F. Productions, J.J. Parker Productions
directed by John Parker
starring Adrienne Barrett, Bruno VeSota, Ben Roseman, Richard Barron, Ed Hinkle, Lucille Rowland, Jebbie VeSota, Faith Parker, Gayne Sullivan, Shorty Rogers, Ed McMahon (voice), Angelo Rossitto, Shelley Berman, Jonathan Haze
written by John Parker, music by George Antheil, Shorty Rogers (jazz tunes)
review by
Mike Haberfelner
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From the beginning of the story, our female protagonist (Adrienne
Barrett) seems to be driven by something and seems to try to hide from
something, so much so that she evades the police at the hotel she's
staying at, gets unnatturally outraged about a newspaper report about a
mysterious stabbing, and she wanders the seedy parts of town as if looking
for something. Finally she meets a man (Richard Barron), who persuades her
to come with him, then though just pimps her out to a rich man (Bruno
VeSota). And while the woman still tries to understand what just has
happened, dark secrets of her past come to the fore, of how she stabbed
her own father (Ben Roseman) ... The woman accompanies her rich client
to his posh hotelroom, but once there, she stabs him and throws him out
the window - but not before he can rip her necklace off her neck and take
it down to the pavement with him. When the woman arrives on street level,
nobody but her inner demons has found the dead body yet, and she tries to
get her necklace out of his hand - but when that doesn't work, she just
cuts off his hand and takes it with her. The woman arrives at a seedy
nightclub, where she thinks herself safe, and she already parties witht he
rest of the guests, when she sees the cops peeping in through the window,
including a cop with her father's face. And they have even brought the
body of her last victim with them. And it seems everyone in the club knows
what she has done, and they all point their fingers at her, when ... The
woman wakes up. Everything was just a dream. But then, what is that
severed hand still holding onto her necklace doing in her drawer? One
of the rare occasions when a cheaply made horror movie isn't just a piece
of underbudgeted formula cinema (which can be quite charming in its own
right) but a truly weird and highly unique experience. This film, which
entirely lacks dialogue and is held together by a mocking off-screen
narrator (Ed McMahon), is a highly compelling and at times utterly surreal
trip into madness, told in sharp and often shocking images, accompanied by
a self-consciously exaggerated musical score, and driven by your typical
less-than-perfect B-movie performances, which have never looked better
than in this movie. In all, a film that just has to be seen!
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