Dementia 13 (1963)

Episode 104, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd:  Hello, and welcome to another episode of 2 Guys in a Chainsaw.

Craig:  I’m Todd. And I’m Craig.

Todd:  After the, Halloween season, we’re back to request time. Yep. We’re gonna try to fulfill a few more requests that we’ve gotten over this next month, and this one is a long standing request from our long standing listener, Manuel. And he has asked us to do Francis Ford Coppola’s one of his his first films, Dementia 13, which also happens to be a Roger Corman produced film. And we’re Yep. Good old friends of Roger Corman, in spirit anyway. Francis Ford Coppola is one in a long line of directors, special effects people, composers, actors, who Roger Corman’s shop really boosted up and into the Hollywood mainstream. And this was Coppola’s first film that he that wasn’t a nudie cutie. Yeah. Right. Yeah. He did a couple of, yeah, just basically boob movies before this and, was second, I believe, sound director or sound technician on a film that was filming by Roger Corman in Ireland. And as he was known to do, finished early and with about $20 left in its budget and all these actors still under contract. So Corman said to Coppola, why don’t you throw together a script that’s basically a psycho knock off? We wanna see some bloody killings and whatever, and let’s film it real fast with this leftover money. Coppola took that 20, I think it was 22,000, and then unbeknownst to Corman, presold the European distribution rights to the movie and raised another 20 so that he could have a little over $40 to shoot the movie with. And he shot it in Ireland, with a couple of the actors who were still, from that other movie.

Craig:  On the same set.

Todd:  Yeah. On the same set and everything, and put together this little movie called Dementia 13, which has to be, like, the most boringly titled Corman film ever. Like, I’m really surprised it was not like murders at the Irish castle or something like that.

Craig:  Yeah. And it was originally just supposed to be titled dementia, but I’ve I think that, Coppola found out sometime before release that there had been another movie in the fifties that had already been titled dementia. So they added the 13, at a later date, which I didn’t know anything about this movie going in. I didn’t look up anything about it, but if you did look into it at all, you would find out that that 13 is kind of a key to the mystery. Right.

Todd:  If you look deeply within this, intertwining complex plot as you watch this film, you might, you might discover a little hint. You know, this movie is really easy to come by. I I don’t know for sure if it’s in the public domain now, but it sure shows up along with a lot of other public domain movies in those same places. You’ve been able to find it at, like, dollar stores. I don’t know if it’s legitimately that way or not, but just kind of up along there with Night of the Living Dead, I’ve run across this film and, like I said, the same kind of place. It’s always been meaning to watch it, never truly compelled to do so until Manuel asked us to do so as well. So we thought we’d give it a listen. And, yeah, I have to say that when the movie started out, it really had a a Hitchcockian feel to it.

Craig:  Yeah. Oh, definitely.

Todd:  You could tell he was really going for a particular style here even though the thing was shot in 9 days. I mean

Craig:  Oh, wow. Yeah. You didn’t know that.

Todd:  Like, only, like, Little Shop of Horrors was shot in a shorter amount of time when you when you look at I think that was shot in, what, 4 days?

Craig:  I don’t know. Yeah.

Todd:  But, yeah. Anyway, I mean, you can’t fault the film too much for being thrown together so quickly. In fact, Coppola used a co writer on the script itself, and, the co writer had said or or maybe it was some of the actors from the film had said that, you know, the reason a lot of the dialogue in the movie is stilted and was actually difficult for the actors to get out was simply because it was such a rush job, you know. So the fact that this movie is coherent at all and is even, you know, halfway good is is a bit of a miracle, I suppose. It’s a testament Todd, you know, some pretty hard working skill, I think, that went into the cinematography and the direction from Coppola, and the actors are really pretty good for what they have to work with. I mean, you recognize several of them.

Craig:  I don’t know about I didn’t. You didn’t. Oh, okay. No. I didn’t. But so I didn’t write down any of their names or anything because I didn’t really recognize any of them. But then afterwards, I went back and looked at, their IMDB pages, and a lot of these folks had been in dozens of movies throughout their career or in dozens of movies. So it’s not like these are amateurs, you know, these are, pretty good actors. And I I have to say that performances were were pretty strong really, especially I particularly liked the woman who played Louise, who is, kind of the main character especially in the beginning, of the movie and Luana Anders. I she was strong. She plays this kind of strong willed woman beyond her character being written that way. I just felt like she had a particularly strong screen presence. She’s very beautiful, but very beautiful in a way that didn’t seem typical of this time period. She she struck me as being very Todd, like somebody that you would see on screen today who maybe, I don’t know how to say it because she is just a beautiful woman, but she’s not kind of cookie cutter beautiful. She’s got kind of a striking appearance to her and Yeah. A a real presence on screen, and I I really enjoyed her. And I I recognized, I think, the guy that played Richard, he seemed familiar to me. I I’m not sure why, but you say, and and I’ve read this Todd, that, the dialogue initially seemed very stilted, and, I also read that when Coppola had finished the movie, Corman saw a screening of it and was just kind of furious and and felt like it was incomprehensible and Todd didn’t have enough of what he wanted which was the the violence and and the shock factor. And so he, if I remember correctly, he actually hired a second director to come in and film some additional scenes to kind of make it more what he wanted it to be. And and those additional scenes, I I know that some of them had to do with Simon the Poacher. And really for me, they seemed a little bit inconsequential. They could have been taken out, it wouldn’t have made any difference. But the movie as it is, is only an hour and 15 minutes long.

Clip:  Yeah. It

Todd:  needs something. Right? Some padding. Yeah.

Craig:  So yeah. I understand why he felt the need to pad it, but as far as the stilted dialogue and stuff goes, you know, I I I didn’t really feel that way. I mean, it Really? It seemed pretty comprehensible to me. I I didn’t I mean, there were parts when I was confused, but it’s a mystery. So I felt like I was supposed to be a little bit scratching my head. But

Todd:  Yeah. I felt like at times it was a little too on the nose. And especially toward the end, there were some really laugh out loud, horrendous lines that really called attention to themselves that I’m sure we’ll get to. But, yeah, I don’t know. I mean, you’re right, but it’s it’s just it’s a very talky kind of movie. And so when there’s not so much action and mostly talking between the characters, they’re always expositioning. Yeah. Yeah. They’re they’re always expositioning every chance they get, and that Todd me is, at times, just felt kind of unnatural. You know, like, why is this guy telling suddenly telling this woman, you know, all of his his deepest, darkest secrets because they happen to be sitting down at a fire together? Things like that. Sure. Just a little unnatural, but you so you didn’t recognize Patrick McGee, the guy who played the detective?

Craig:  No. I don’t even remember there being a detective.

Todd:  Oh, I’m sorry. Not detective. The doctor. The guy who played the doctor. Sorry.

Craig:  You know, I I I for a second there, I was scratching my head like, wait. Did you watch the same movie?

Todd:  You know who I want him to be? I want him to be the detective in Dial in for Murder because he’s like the spitting image of that guy. Yeah.

Craig:  I mean, he was kinda familiar, but just familiar in that sinister, semiforin way that that in in in movies of this era, you know, anybody who is even slightly foreign or who had something of an accent, you’re like, oh, who’s that guy?

Todd:  I think I’ve recognized him the most from the 19 seventies version of Tales from the Crypt and a couple other of these Roger Corman movies, like the mask of the red death. I think he was in die monster die. He’s been in a, actually, a lot of horror films and a lot of these older horror films. Although he’s had roles in, like, Chariots of Fire and Barry Lyndon.

Craig:  He’s a Tony award winner, I read, I think.

Todd:  For sure. And I think maybe one of the strongest, except for the fact that, again, he’s given a lot of silly lines to say, and, I don’t know. We’ll probably end up talking about his character as we go on because it’s, it’s pretty ambiguous. It goes along as it goes along, just what you’re supposed to think of this guy. But before we start talking about things, you know, you had mentioned Luana Anders, and I think where I recognized her from the most is one of my wife’s favorite films of all time, which is the pit and the pendulum starring Vincent Price, which was another Roger Corman movie just a couple years before this one. And I we’ve probably seen that in our house, like, I don’t know, 20 times. And she’s great in that too. She’s late later on, she’s an easy rider with Dennis Hopper. Nothing really significant, but, apparently did a ton of TV. Yeah. I agree with you, and I I got this feeling Todd, like, she almost also seemed like, I don’t I don’t know how to say it, like a typical Hitchcock girl. Right?

Craig:  Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Todd:  Yeah. Sort of beautiful bombshell. And and like you say, not classically bombshell beautiful, but just has a a certain striking beauty about her blonde, you know, short hair that has a a bit of a edge to her. Right? Yeah. It’s past. And

Craig:  She he reminded me and not because she really looks like her, but she kinda reminded me of, Jennifer Tilly, a little bit. Just kinda like like I don’t know. She’s got a really striking face. Again, doesn’t look anything like Angelina Jolie, but that kind of beauty, like, unexpected. You know? I I I don’t know. Well, I’m getting I’m trying to make it more complicated than it is. She’s very beautiful.

Todd:  Well, and I I think her personality plays into that a little Todd. Because kind of like Jennifer Tilly, she’s got a bit of an edge to her. She she looks like and and this is true of a lot of Hitchcockian heroines or or anti heroines as it tends to be, where they seem like they’ll be playing that role of the era, you know, the, oh, very proper, very kind of nice, naive in some sense woman who all these things happened Todd, Right? Like like like the birds or something or psycho. But as it turns out, she actually is pretty headstrong and has opinions, and she’s not one to be messed with, I suppose, and has her own agenda. And and that I think we get that from the very get go. We don’t know anything really about these two characters, but we soon find out that they are married. Mhmm. And she plays a character named, like you said, Louise, and then her husband, John, go out on a boat. And, again, the dial I I’m sorry, but

Craig:  the dialogue’s really silly right from

Todd:  the get go. He’s, like, running out there, and he’s going on the boat. She’s, like, well, where are you going? He’s, like, I’m going out to row on this boat by myself. And she’s, like, well, I’ll come with you too then. Okay. Tell the audience everything they need to know right

Clip:  here. That will is no good. Your mother’s still alive. We can talk her into changing it. You were always too greedy, Louise. I just don’t like to see her exploiting you. But it’s all over the world. John, you’re rowing too hard. Let me row. You’re concerned about me, Louise? Is it my heart? You’re only a member of the family as long as you’re my wife. If I die before mother, you’re

Craig:  a stranger. And then he has a heart attack, and, she’s like, oh, you idiot. Where are your pills? And he’s like, they’re in my coat, and she pulls them out, and she’s like, it’s empty, you idiot. And then so she starts rowing towards Shore, and he’s like, you better row faster because if I die, you’re not gonna get anything. He, like, literally says that. Yeah.

Todd:  There’s there’s no love lost between these 2, clearly.

Craig:  And and so so then he dies. And so she slaps the crap out of him a couple of times. And then she’s like, what should I do? And so she dumps his body in the lake. She says this out loud. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. What should I do?

Todd:  I need to get rid of the body. She’s already scheming.

Craig:  Yeah. And and I didn’t know. Like I said, I didn’t read anything about this going in. So I didn’t know that it was supposed to be reminiscent of Psycho, but it is. I mean, even before I knew that, I was like, oh my gosh. This is so psycho, because she like, we see her conniving and we hear her voice in voice over, like, what am I going to do? Okay. Here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna throw him in the lake, and then I’m gonna write a letter to his mom and say that he got called back to New York for business and that he won’t be able to come to Kathleen’s memorial, but, of course, he’ll be thinking about them. And, like, we’re hearing all this in voice over as she’s doing it. In a motel room. Right. And so we just get all this exposition of what’s going on. And and so what she her plan is she’s gonna somehow win over the mother, and she even says, she’s like, I know that I can win over the mother or I can get rid of her in some way, but his brothers, I’m not so sure, especially his older brother Richard. I don’t know. It’s gonna be difficult, but, and and so that’s it. I mean, that’s the setup for then, you know, what’s gonna happen.

Todd:  So, you know, initially, I thought that this all happened near the castle, but I guess this happened on their way there. That must be. I don’t because she slips this note under a door. Right? Like, it says mother, and then she slips this note under a door like she’s passing it into the mother’s room or something.

Craig:  Yeah. I I thought that it all happened at this castle. Okay. So the rest of the whole movie takes place at this castle, Castle Halloran. The the family’s name is Halloran. And I thought that it all happened there too, but then stuff happened later in the movie that made me think maybe that wasn’t there.

Todd:  I don’t know. I’m still confused about it. Well, she’s pretty dumb. I mean, like, dumping a body in a lake is guaranteeing it’s gonna come up in a few days, and the same thing with throwing all of his stuff in the lake. Yeah. She’s not real smart about it, but,

Craig:  And she, like, she she packs it, like, oh, okay. What would he take with him? Well, why wouldn’t he take everything with him? 1st, on the leg sheet. Everything he bought. Right. Yeah. Was he gonna leave some

Todd:  of it? Was he planning to leave it?

Craig:  She packs up some of his clothes and his typewriter because he’ll need to type letters on the plane. And then she just she just tosses it in the lake, like, from the shore, like, a suitcase. Like, what do you think is going to happen? Like, that suitcase is just gonna be floating there in the morning. But whatever. It doesn’t matter. Nobody finds it, so it’s fine.

Todd:  And we end up at, Gasol Halloran, big Irish castle. We get introduced in to another character who is Kane. Kane is being picked up at the airport by this guy named Billy, and Billy is one of John’s brothers. So it’s Billy and Richard. And it turns out that Kane is Richard’s fiancee. So I guess they’re planning on getting married not long after Kathleen’s memorial ceremony. And he picks her up, and again they have more dialogue where he gives her a little more information about the family, tells us a memorial ceremony is happening. Sorry that Richard couldn’t come.

Craig:  Sorry that John couldn’t come. You are always, you’re terrible. I am. I’m terrible with these names,

Todd:  man, especially

Clip:  in this

Todd:  and I’ll tell you, in this movie too, they commits this sin. In my mind, it’s a sin. You just can’t do this in films where you have characters that look so much alike.

Craig:  Like, the 2 women look very identical. They are. Like, their hair

Todd:  is the same color. It’s almost the same style. They look. They have the same makeup. It’s like, please, can you throw me a bone here? Please make one a brunette or, like, give her a weird hairdo or put it in a braid or something. Right?

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  I was constantly confusing the 2 and and having to kinda look back and go, wait a minute, which one was that?

Craig:  Well, and we get we get the exposition, like, at some point, Louise is talking to Billy, I think, and, he’s like, how do you like Castle Halloran? And she’s like, oh, it’s cool, but it’s it’s almost like a haunted castle. And and he’s like, well, well, it is haunted. It’s haunted by Kathleen. And, like, they never really expand upon that. Yeah. Like, it like, is it really or is I I I think that maybe he’s being metaphorical. Like, it’s haunted by her memory, or something along those lines. But we get this exposition about how Kathleen died when she was young, and his mother never got over it. And he’s like, she even had a poem. And then he and then he recites this poem.

Clip:  Three sons, each who would marry and go away. But little Kathleen would always stay.

Craig:  We we we find out that at some point, she drowned in the pond. And another problem and I don’t care. It’s not like I’m losing sleep over it or anything. But another problem that I have is supposedly this was only supposed to have happened 7 years ago. And when it happened 7 years ago, Billy was just a child. I don’t know how old Richard was supposed to be, but there’s no way in hell that this guy, Billy, was a kid 7 years ago. There’s just no way. Yeah.

Todd:  He was supposed to be 13. Right?

Craig:  Yeah. Hey. You’re giving away important plot twist.

Todd:  So sorry. Spoiler alert. There will be more.

Craig:  I didn’t even I didn’t even catch it until the very end. So that’s fine. You’re just enlightening our 2 listeners. But but yeah. Okay. So Man, well, he’s one of

Todd:  them, and he’s already knows what the story is.

Craig:  Yeah. He knows, so it’s all good. So she died 7 years ago, and the mom never got over it. And there’s lots like you said, there’s just kind of lots of dialogue, but what ends up being exposed is that they reconvene every year here in Ireland, even though Richard and John both live and work in the United States, and they recreate her funeral. Yeah. That’s weird. What That’s sad. Yeah. Right. Why?

Todd:  It’s a lot of trouble for everybody to come back year after year to throw some flowers on a grave. Let’s just Right.

Craig:  And and and Kane, the girl, at one point says, I think or maybe it’s Louise. I don’t know. One of the women says, why do you do this? And, like, nobody ever answers.

Todd:  So that’s a really good answer except Yeah. Except that it’s just to appease the mother, really. She just hasn’t gotten over it, and she insists on it. And and then we get introduced to these characters as things go along, and we don’t get their names immediately or even their relationships quite immediately. And they come and go at odd times. So I imagine that well, at least one of them, like you said, was thrown in after the fact, by department just to give us another kill. There’s an Irish guy who starts talking about how he’s been here for 20 years, and he’s discussing secret passages and and Kathleen, in the castle with Kate, I believe. Right?

Craig:  Oh, I don’t know. Who knows? Who cares? I think one is a cute

Todd:  blonde chick. Yeah. And, and Billy talks with Kane or Louise, one of the 2, and we get lots of flashbacks to him and Kathleen playing. And so we get this notion that she drowned, and Billy either witnessed it or was the last person to see her or whatever.

Clip:  And they

Craig:  See, and that’s where you said things kind of being really on the nose. Like, okay, folks. Things are probably gonna get spoiled, so I I’m sure you’ll be terribly disappointed. But, like, the that very first flashback where we see okay. So they say that Kathleen died, like, they were somebody random was having a wedding at the castle, and Kathleen was a bridesmaid, I guess, even though she was a little girl. She she drowned in the pond on that day. Well, we get this flashback from Billy’s perspective of the 2 of them kind of playing and then kind of roughhousing near the edge of the water. And I’m thinking, surely this is a red herring because this makes it totally seem like Billie had something to do with her death. Like, it wasn’t just a simple accident. And I thought, oh, well, that’s that’s too obvious. So look else look elsewhere look elsewhere because that’s too obvious. No. Yeah.

Todd:  It it they they tried to to add these red herrings. 1 of the red herrings too is Richard. They make Richard off to be the and Richard is like a sculptor, and I guess he brings his studio with him. Right? Right. Because because because half the time we see him, and, in fact, the very first time we meet him, he’s in a studio with a blowtorch and Todd knows what else, making some sculpture. And that’s just kind of his domain.

Craig:  And his sculptures look like nothing. Like, they just look like they just look like scrap metal.

Todd:  Like like the sixties. It’s I don’t know. It’s modern art, right,

Craig:  at the tip. And and apparently, I guess, at least this is what I took away from it, is that this is, like, their family craft. Like, their family has always been artisans. They traditionally had worked in stone, but I don’t know. I guess Richard de Rubble or something. Right. Right. So he’s he graduated metalwork, and and that’s what he does now. But, yeah, he, I think, is because he’s very broody, so we’re supposed to question his character all the time. But Yeah. I don’t know. It’s not particularly well crafted as far as suspense goes. But but meanwhile, I don’t know. I don’t wanna be too here I go, apologizing again. I don’t wanna be too critical of it because, you know, it was suspenseful. I, you know, I I Yeah. Was I was curious as to what was going on. I I really expected this to be more of kind of a haunted castle Yes. Kind of movie than it ended up being. Me too. But really what it turns into, and here’s, really where kind of the cycle influence comes in, is Louise is doing whatever she can. She’s masterminding this plan to get Lady Halloran to, change her will. And so once she finds out about Kathleen, then she They have their ceremony. Right. Right.

Todd:  Which is standing around in the rain under black umbrellas and tossing some flowers onto the grave. And the mother looks at the flowers and it it appears to her that one of the flowers has died as soon as it touches the Craig. So she faints, which apparently she does every year.

Craig:  Every year.

Todd:  Like, they should just be standing behind her, you know, with like a blanket or something. Right?

Craig:  I thought that was hilarious too. Like, lady, if this flower wilts every year, why are you so shocked they pass out every year? It’s true. But but she does. And so then Louise, comes to her and she’s like,

Clip:  there’s something in this house, like music in the hallways, Like a child’s music asking me something, but more like begging me. Painful. She wants you to listen to her, to watch for her signs, and to try it. Do you know what she wants?

Craig:  It’s already been established earlier on that Lady Halloran does not like either of her sons, wife or fiance. Yeah. And she’s very standoffish with them. But as soon as Louise is like, oh, I’m hearing something in the hallway. She’s like, oh, okay. Well, you’re my best friend.

Todd:  And she’s found her Achilles’ heel apparently.

Craig:  Right. And and and I like this. I like her performance. She is very manipulative, and it’s strong. I like her performance. And and so she goes in on, you know, when Lady Halloran’s sick sick bed, she tells her this, and then she’s got this plan where she roams around the house and she eventually finds Kathleen’s room, which is like behind a secret door or something.

Todd:  It’s a weird door.

Craig:  Yeah. It’s like a window. Like It’s like she has to

Todd:  climb in there. Right. Like, it’s not a door door. Yeah. Yeah. It’s bizarre.

Craig:  Which I didn’t get at all. And there’s somebody you know, there’s these all we see is feet, but there’s there’s somebody kind of skulking around and, like, seeing her, and she doesn’t know it. And we do, but we don’t know who it is. It’s a man, or at least it appears to be a man. It’s men’s shoes. And and she crawls in there and, like, there’s some randomly spooky stuff that happens in there, like, poise move by themselves and, like, there’s, like, this wind up, monkey with an axe. And, like, it it starts going toy ever. And every and every time the axe chops down in the score, it’s like, but there’s no explanation for why these toys are just randomly going off for themselves, and Louise is not at all disturbed by it. She’s like, oh, okay. Whatever.

Todd:  I you know, you’re thinking that he’s just trying to squeeze in some jump scares, and I think that was probably the intent. But, also, like you said, they go nowhere. It’s not like there’s this tension, like, she’s gonna be interrupting anything or gonna be heard.

Craig:  Right. Right. K. So so she gathers up a few of these toys, and I I have to say that this is probably my favorite part of the movie. In fact, I was kind of getting kind of excited at this point. And she she gathers up some of these toys, and she goes down to the pond that’s on their property where Kathleen drowned. And I didn’t know what she was doing, but she ties up these toys all up in these twine, ties them together, and then ties them to a wrench. And I’m like, okay. Alright. So she’s gonna anchor these toys in the Todd somehow, but, you know, what’s that gonna be? Well, then she rubs something on the twine, and and I didn’t really understand what was going on, but I’m like, okay. Alright. You know, interesting, whatever. And then she Starts Todd

Todd:  take her clothes off.

Craig:  She strips off all of her clothes, which I thought was really pretty racy for the time. Right?

Todd:  Todd. Yeah. I mean, yeah, she just did her broad panties at that point.

Craig:  Yeah. And and I and, of course, you know, she’s gorgeous. She looks great, but I just for the time, I was like, oh, that’s kinda racy. And then so she dives into the pond with this thing that she’s created, and she plants it in the bottom. And at that point, I’m thinking, okay. Probably whatever she put on the twine, that’s something that’s gonna eat away at it. So, these things pop up, you know, in the ponds, and that is what happens. But this is where things took a total turn for me. Okay. So she she’s swimming underwater, and, you know, this is what, the fifties. Right?

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah. Late early sixties.

Craig:  Yep. I thought that these underwater shots were really cool. They were. And you know, I am

Todd:  a sucker for underwater photography. I will watch any movie if it has underwater photography in it. I don’t care. And you know, we’ve reviewed

Clip:  some

Todd:  great we’ve reviewed a, you know, a zombie attacking a shark

Craig:  underwater. Right.

Todd:  I’d I’m always glued to the screen when this when this stuff comes up.

Craig:  It looks really good. I was impressed. And by the way, I okay. So you said this movie is available everywhere, and it is. You know, I I looked on YouTube, and it’s posted, you know, I don’t know, half a dozen times on YouTube, and I found one version that had excellent video quality. I mean it was so clean. It had to be some sort of restored version. It was just, it was beautiful. It was be I mean it looked almost like it could have been shot yesterday in black and white. It was so beautiful, but the sound wasn’t great, and the sound kept cutting in and out. So then I had to, in a different window on my computer, I had to pull up another version that had much better audio quality, but much worse visual quality. So anytime the, the sound would go out on the good video one, I would switch to the bad video one. What the heck? This is dead. Well and I wouldn’t if I didn’t care, I would have just watched the bad video 1. But the the video on the good video one was so clean and so Todd. I I didn’t wanna miss it. And especially in this part, like, it was just real this underwater stuff, I mean, it was really Todd, especially for the time. Okay. So she’s swimming around underwater, and then she sees something, and it’s intentionally distorted. Like, we can’t or at least the one that I watched, it was. Like, I couldn’t really tell what it was that she saw, but it scares her, and she screams underwater, and then she swims back up to the surface to the edge of the Todd, and all of a sudden, there is an axe murderer there, and he kills her fairly brutally. I mean Yeah. The violence is it’s mostly suggested, but you definitely get the hint that she’s kinda getting chopped up. And then she’s dead. And like I said, like I’ve already said 2 or 3 times, I knew nothing about this going in. But at this point, I’m like, oh my god. This is totally psycho Mhmm. Because our main character is getting killed halfway through the movie. Yeah. And I didn’t expect it at all. I didn’t see it coming

Todd:  okay. Now I really don’t know where this movie is going. You know? I guess it’s gonna be about this axe murder, but, yeah, that came completely out of left field. It was fantastic.

Craig:  Yeah. I love that. I thought that was fan and and whatever. I what I read was that Corman specifically wanted kind of a psycho knock off. And in that way, in the way that they kill off the main character halfway into the movie, it certainly is. But beyond that, I mean, they’re completely different stories. You know, it’s it’s not like it’s cookie cutter copy. Yeah. So I I I don’t discredit it, you know, for for being a knockoff. Even though I know that that was kind of Corman’s wheelhouse, you know, he he did that. But, whatever. It’s fine. Anyway, so moving forward, it kind of does become the mystery of who is the psycho ax killer.

Todd:  Right. They have lunch, out in the lawn, and we this is, I think, around the time we get to meet the doctor. We saw the doctor a little bit earlier who is consulting. And and it’s funny because this doctor, I guess, is also a bit of an amateur psychiatrist or something. He’s really trying to diagnose the mother’s mind as well. And the doctor’s a very interesting character, I think, in this, in that when he comes on, and I think this is a scene before this, but it’s really worth talking about. When he’s talking with the mother, he’s really trying to tell her to let go.

Clip:  Consider your mind as a bird in your hand. When it’s relaxed, it lies quiet and easy. And when it’s tense and frightened, strange to leave you. What I want you to do is to rest and to relax your mind. Remember the, bird in your hand?

Todd:  Then he says some really strange things to and I think it’s just the on the nose writing, but when they were looking for Louise, the mother asks for Louise. Mhmm. It’s because, you know, of this earlier thing. I guess she wants to find Louise to see if she, has heard anything more from her dead daughter. Right. And, the maid comes in, and the the doctor’s, like, immediately on this.

Clip:  And my daughter-in-law, Louise, she isn’t in her room. I don’t think she slept there last night if you were to ask me. Yeah. But nobody’s asking you little girl. Hurry up with the lunch, or I’ll wish 5 years a spinster hold on you. I must know well, Louise. I never noticed this interest in your daughter-in-law before.

Craig:  I don’t know.

Todd:  It’s just it’s just it’s just a pile of bizarre dialogue, but the end result of all this is I’m thinking, okay. Are they trying to cast suspicions on the doctor?

Craig:  Yeah. I mean, he’s just creepy. He’s he’s just creepy in general, and I got the sense that it’s not so much that he cared about the well-being of this family at all. It was more that he was just concerned about analyzing them. You know, like, it doesn’t really seem like he cares about them at all. It’s or or or about what happens to them or or whatever, but just, like, he wants to figure it out. And he’ll do that however he needs to.

Todd:  Because he has just sort of a detached aloofness about everything that’s going on, super analytical, and he professes to care. But then in the things he says, he’s really pretty blunt and brutal and just kind of he has a very good bedside manner, this doctor. No. Yeah. That’s why that’s why I was thinking of him as a detective through the whole thing.

Craig:  It it’s like the role that he played. You’re right. It’s true. He he is like that. And you you’re right. So okay. So they all have breakfast together, and the toys pop up in the Todd, and everybody’s, you know, what’s happening? The mom is like, I don’t even know how she got this. She like, the mom looks at all these toys floating up, and she’s like, Kathleen wants a tiara. What?

Clip:  It’s a

Todd:  it’s a message clear as day from beyond. Right. You need my tiara, mom. These 4 dolls.

Craig:  And I feel like Billy has another kind of very brief flashback at that point or something back again just to him and Kathleen at the edge of the water or whatever. The mom goes and gets this tiara, this beautiful diamond tiara, and she’s like, I I wanted to bury it with you, but they wouldn’t let me. So I’m gonna take it to your playhouse, which we’ve never heard of before. But she goes out, and apparently, there’s this playhouse out on the property somewhere. And, it’s got all Kathleen stuff in it, but she goes out there, and then Kathleen is in there. Like Yeah. Like, Kathleen’s Todd, and she’s, like, I I wanted to bury it with you, but they wouldn’t let me. So I’m gonna take it to your playhouse, which we’ve never heard of before. But she goes out, and apparently, there’s this playhouse out on the property somewhere. And, it’s got all Kathleen stuff in it, but she goes out there, and then Kathleen is in there. Yeah. Like, Kathleen’s body propped up perfectly preserved, certainly doesn’t look like it’s been dead and buried for 7 years. It’s just sitting there, and she sees it, and she’s like, and then all of a sudden, the axe murderer shows up, and the axe murderer just starts, like, tearing down the playhouse.

Todd:  The playhouse. It’s like an outdoor playhouse thing. It’s like a shed almost. Right?

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. And and so the axe murderer tears it down, and she escapes, and and she runs away and she right. And she passes out on the lawn, and Kane and the female maid, I don’t remember her name, find her first, and they’re like, where’s Richard? Where’s Richard? Where could he be? Where could he be? Like

Todd:  Hint. Hint. Hint. Right. That’s right. Everybody comes out.

Craig:  After a while, the doctor and Richard and Billy all show up, and they take the mom inside. And, you know, the whole last, whatever, half hour of this movie or whatever is just this this mystery. And and and and then that this is where it gets padded. There’s a whole scene, and it’s a long scene with Simon the Poacher who sees, like Simon the poacher

Todd:  with the worst Irish accent you’ve ever heard in

Craig:  your Oh, my god. Worst Irish accent, and I’m pretty sure a fake mustache too.

Clip:  It’s only old bushy tale I’m after, me and Soul Rat. I swear by the shade of fin macool, Master Billy. I’m not poaching illegal gay. No. It is only that no good rabbit stealing fox that brings me here. Please, master Billy. For the memory of your late great father, Todd rest his soul, don’t turn me over to the bulls.

Craig:  But he’s, like, sees movement in the brush. But I I wouldn’t wanna live near Simon the poacher because he just sees leaves moving and starts shooting into them, like

Todd:  That’s right. He poaches it. You can cite this guy. Right.

Craig:  But there’s this scene that it has to go on for 5 minutes where he’s just, like, army crawling in the woods near the Todd, and he keeps seeing things moving, but he can’t find what it is. And then an owl scares him. And then he crawls and then he crawls into some sort of, like, den or something. And then Kathleen’s body is in there, and he’s like, ah. And so he scurries out. And then and then the axe murderer chops off his head. In in hindsight, in in having read about it afterwards, like, it’s so obvious that this was a scene that was just cut in to give them another kill because it’s Yeah. Entirely inconsequential.

Todd:  But it’s pretty again, it’s also a little brutal for the time, I think, and especially for Roger Corman movie, which could tend to be bloody. But, again, you have to put that in its context for the the time. Nothing Roger Corman ever put out was as near even approach bloodiness that we would call today. But, you know, the head the head gets chopped and rolls and Yeah. And I think at this point and I still I gave the movie a lot of credit because I thought, okay. We’ve seen now these 3 kills by an axe murderer, and now it’s about an axe murderer. You know? Like, I mean, the with the first one, the person who killed Louise wanted to kill Louise. You know? Like, they had a thing against Louise and wanted her out of the picture.

Clip:  Right.

Todd:  But then by the time this random dude wandering around in the woods gets his head cut off, it’s like, okay. This is a movie about some guy that just who’s who’s gonna kill everybody by the end of this if he’s not stopped. And so my mind was really you know, you’re always looking for motive, and, at this point, I was completely confused. Like, okay. There’s clearly no motive. You know? We’re talking about, again, a psycho situation or something like that. And and so I I actually give the movie a lot of credit whether this movie was this part was inserted or not, that the mom was almost hacked, that this guy was killed, that she was killed, and now I really had no idea what was going on. True. It was very unpredictable. Let’s put it Yes. Yeah.

Craig:  I I totally agree. And it

Todd:  kept my interest for that reason.

Craig:  Yeah. Frankly and I wanna be nice, Manuel, because I know that this is one of your favorite movies. It’s it’s not one of my favorite movies. And when I saw that it was only an hour and 15 minutes, I was like, oh, good. I love short movies. It it it didn’t feel that short. It felt longer than it was. That that’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy it. I did think that there were good things going on. And at this point in the movie, I was I was still interested, you know, who’s it gonna be, how’s it gonna play out, even though I felt like, well, it’s gotta be Richard or Billy or the doctor, I guess. There were times when I thought, maybe it’s the doctor, maybe he’s, you know, trying to throw people off, but, there was kind of a limited pool. You know, I didn’t expect it to be something out of left field. Like, oh, it’s the dad who’s been dead for 3 you know, like Yeah. I I know.

Todd:  The next couple things that happen are are really just kinda dumb. I mean, there’s really no logic behind them, I think. Billy can’t sleep, and he’s up late, and he’s talking with Kane about his nightmares.

Clip:  I’m always a little boy, in my room. It’s late. I hear somebody outside making a kind of a scraping sound. I get out of bed, look out of the window, and there’s a man climbing up the wall coming closer toward my window. I yell for my mother, and she comes into the room just as the man is coming in through the window. I hold on to her legs, crying. I’m so small I can only come up to her waist. The man is in the shadows. You can almost recognize him, but not really. He says that he’s insane And that someone else in the room is insane also. And that he’s going to nod his head. And when he does, that other insane person will nod their head.

Todd:  And so then his mom picks him up and takes him out and throws him in the pond.

Craig:  And then, like, as an afterthought

Clip:  What’s wrong? Nothing. You just made me realize the man in my dream who climbs up my wall is Richard. I’m sorry. I just never thought of it before.

Todd:  Oh, man. So bad. So bad. And then for reasons I can’t I still don’t understand, Arthur decides that the pond needs, I’m sorry.

Craig:  Yeah. That’s his name. The

Todd:  decides that the pond needs to be drained.

Craig:  Oh, yeah. Right. Right. Arthur’s the groundskeeper. Right. And so he tells Arthur to drain it, and he’s like, I don’t know how. And he’s like, well, here’s some keys, and this is how you do it. So he so he drains the pot.

Todd:  Whatever. Right? And I’m not sure what he was expecting to find, but it seemed like he found exactly what he expected to find because what he unearthed is what scared the what scared Louise when she was under here, which is a almost like a tombstone, and it says forgive me, Kathleen. And at this point, if you haven’t figured out who the killer is, you’re really dense.

Clip:  Yeah. Right.

Todd:  There’s only one person who could

Craig:  be wracked with guilt over Kathleen. Exactly. But they still they’re still trying really, really hard to make you think that it’s Richard even though it pretty it pretty obviously isn’t. This was this was the point where I was confused because I thought, surely, when they drained the pond, they would find John’s body. Yes. Exactly. But they don’t.

Todd:  Case, but whatever else.

Craig:  Right. Right. So I I guess you must be right that wherever she dumps John was not at the place. I I thought for sure that she had dumped him in the pond, but apparently apparently not.

Todd:  And not just John’s body, but Louise’s body. Hello?

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  And Yeah. Right. Poacher’s head. I mean, they Right.

Craig:  Where are all these Todd coping? And I’m like,

Todd:  they I did at this point, nobody really gives

Craig:  a rat’s ass to Louise’s Todd, by the way. Like Not really.

Todd:  Written her off as stealing the silverware and skipping town.

Craig:  Right. So this happens and, you know, they find this tombstone and the doctor is like, your family are all artisans. Right? And he’s looking at Richard, and Richard’s like, you know that I work in metal. And the doctor is like, yeah. But that shrine looks like it’s 6 or 7 years old, and you were still working in stone at that time. The doctor knows so

Todd:  much about this family.

Craig:  Yeah. And so then Richard goes skulking around through some catacombs. Not bad either. Which I guess are in the castle. And, Kain is following him, and they end up in this room that has all of these beautiful, like, busts and, stone sculptures. And it’s I guess he tells her when she reveals herself because a rat scares her or something. He’s like, this is my dad’s studio. I was just I was trying to figure out who made that shrine, and she’s like, oh my god. I’m so sorry I ever doubted you. I’ll never doubt you again. Let’s get married right now.

Todd:  But but then as the camera backs out or away from the 2 of them embracing, Kathleen’s body again is in the foreground. What?

Craig:  What does this mean? I know. I didn’t get you there. Okay. And so then, the doctor takes Billy out for a drink. And and this part oh my god. Maybe it’s just maybe my mind goes to strange places, but this it seemed oddly seductive to me. Like, he was take like, he was taking out this young boy and and young boy, he’s not that young. He’s a man, but significantly younger than the doctor. And he takes him to this bar, and they’re under the guise of they’re looking for Louise.

Clip:  Mhmm.

Craig:  But that clearly isn’t, the reason. And he he gives, the Billy a drink, and Billy is like, no. I don’t drink. He’s like, come on. It’s Ireland. And he’s

Todd:  that’s right. And as a doctor, of course. He’s like, it’s really the only medicine you could take around here. Only if it’ll get you through this is alcohol.

Craig:  He’s plying he’s plying this young guy with liquor, which is weird. Okay. And then that’s where the seductive part ends, but I thought it was kinda weird. Yeah. And and then and then he’s like, you’re the only one who saw Kathleen drown. And Billy’s like, no. I didn’t. And the doctor’s like, yes. You did. And Billy says, no, I didn’t. And the doctor says, yes, you did because you told me.

Clip:  Richard, Tell me what happened. What happened to Louise?

Craig:  And supposedly, when Billy was a kid and having all these nightmares, in his delirious state, he confessed this. Okay. Well, if that’s the case, why are you just bringing it up now? Yeah. Exactly. Doesn’t make any sense. Listen to the words of the song because they’re important. But then it cuts immediately. I thought it was gonna be a flashback. Flashback

Clip:  to the wedding where Kathleen died. I did too. But then they had to scratch that out because it wasn’t because it was the wedding

Craig:  reception for Richard and Kane, which apparently they threw a wedding together, right, reception for Richard and Kane, which apparently they threw a wedding together right quick.

Todd:  Jumps forward in time, like, I don’t know, months later. Who knows? It’s it’s just kind of

Craig:  yeah. I thought it was, like, the next day. I thought that was just like, while Billy and the doctor were at the bar, they just threw a wedding together.

Todd:  It plays, like, the next day for sure.

Craig:  And so then the doctor has this super creepy, creepy ass conversation with Kane.

Clip:  You know, the one thing of the world that really chills my bones to the matter is when a pretty girl on a wedding dress looks at me and finds me a repulsive. Oh, don’t be silly, doctor. Oh, I’m often silly. One of my major advisers. Another one is a desire on my part to help others. However, I answered that myself. Then you can help me by telling me where Richard is. I’m not sure where Richard is or indeed, what he is.

Craig:  You are such a creeper. And and she’s, like, and she’s, like, yeah. I gotta go.

Todd:  It’s it’s another one of these really funny moments where, okay, apparently, time has passed, and he’s now trying to convince her that the family is bad news.

Craig:  Right. Right. Really? No.

Todd:  Time is just really poor on all this.

Craig:  So Kane and Richard run off for a romp in the hay, literally? Literally.

Todd:  Some new location that we didn’t know about before.

Craig:  Yeah. The doctor is walking around and, like, he’s just on the estate, and he sits down and he starts thinking about the song that Billy was singing. And he’s like, wait a second. On a hook? And so he goes so he goes, I guess, to the meat locker.

Todd:  Yeah. Obviously, this made no sense to me whatsoever. This is the biggest leap in logic. And there is the body. And, again, I wasn’t even sure who it was. At first, I thought it was Kane. I thought Kane had been murdered, and it’s Louise’s Todd, all bloody and gross hanging up on a hook.

Craig:  Next to, like, the slab of beef or whatever Yeah. In this shed on the property.

Todd:  And there’s this body again of Kathleen there at her feet. And so he picks it up and walks out with it. And at this moment, I’m thinking, okay. So the doctor is the killer?

Craig:  I was there too.

Todd:  This is this MO. I mean, at this point, you realize this body has been at almost every murder except in the foreground of the catacomb scene where

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  Who knows why still, who knows why it was there and why an axe murder didn’t didn’t leap in after it either. But, anyway yeah. And then he he brings it outside to the grounds Todd the it’s by this fountain or something in the garden. And then everybody in the wedding party comes out and sees it and screams. And then out leaps Billy with an ax and tries to murder Craig, who’s the one who screamed first at the body. And and, basically, at the end of this, the doctor has to explain it all to us, you know, in three lines of dialogue just before the credits go.

Clip:  Meadowlacks doll, something to protect to relieve his guilt.

Todd:  And so it was really just the fact that each of these people happened to stumble upon this wax figure as Billy was moving it about the the castle grounds that caused them to get axed. Right. And the doctor figured this all out somehow, even though this would have been the first time that he had seen the wax figure or anybody knew anything about the wax figure, his plan was then to lure him out by taking

Clip:  it

Todd:  out into the garden. So it’s, yeah, it’s pretty convoluted.

Craig:  Yeah. So right. So we get the 32nd flashback where we see that in their rough housing, Billy had somehow unintentionally, I guess, knocked Kathleen into the water, but then she died and that’s why she was so he was so guilty or whatever. And then he’s like, this Kathleen is just a wax figure, and he takes the ax and smashes her face. The end. And, like, literally, the end, roll the credits after the smashed face doll.

Todd:  It’s just so we could have credits rolling over a still image of of what looks like a woman with an accent her face. Yeah.

Craig:  Right.

Clip:  Right.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  I don’t I don’t know. Like, I don’t think this movie’s bad.

Todd:  No. Certainly.

Craig:  I I I think it’s I think it’s perfectly fine. You know? Like, there you know, Todd, and anybody who’s listened to us for any period of time knows that I’m just really not much into these old movies. I’m just not that much into it. It’s not my thing.

Clip:  Mhmm.

Craig:  But it’s Hitchcockian. It’s reminiscent of Psycho, and Francis Ford Coppola, you know, went on to be one of the most celebrated directors of our time. And so, you know, this is this is his first real effort. Like you said, he had done some boobie flicks before this, but this was kinda his first real film, and he was doing it under some pretty tight restrictions as far as time and budget and he didn’t even really have any control over casting or location or anything like that. And so considering all of those things, it’s a pretty darn good movie.

Todd:  You know, it really is. And in fact and you know I love these kinds of movies, actually.

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah.

Todd:  And I’ve seen a lot of Corman’s output, and this is right in his wheelhouse. Make it color instead of black and white.

Craig:  Mhmm.

Todd:  Right? Throw Vincent Price in there, pat it out like hell with people wandering through the empty castle a lot more, and a few more jump scares, and a little bit more of a suspicion about a ghost or something supernatural happening. And this is just like any one of a half a dozen of his other movies that just got a little more money thrown at them and had a little more time involved. Sure. Strip that all away from those movies, and you end up with this movie, which is, again, it’s a little potboiler. It’s got a little silliness, but you can really chalk it all up to the fact that they shot the freaking thing in 9 days with $40,000.

Craig:  And considering that some really strong performances, I mean, the actors here are are are pretty darn good, I have to say. There were some scenes, especially, you know, some of these dialogue scenes where it was kinda close-up on a couple of characters having back and forth, where I thought their performances were really strong, surprisingly strong for the the type of movie that this is.

Todd:  Well, there’s a remake. I don’t know if it’s out. Out. Think it’s out. Out now.

Craig:  You can rent it for 4.99 on YouTube.

Todd:  I’m kinda curious to see it, to be honest, because I think this is this is a movie. Again, at its core, it’s not a bad idea. Put some time and some money and some effort into it and make a better script, and, it would be really interesting, I think.

Craig:  I don’t know. I watched the trailer. It doesn’t look very good. But I don’t know. Could it could be a surprise. I I’m not gonna I’m not I’ll wait until it’s free on YouTube, And and then I’ll let you know.

Todd:  Well, thank you, Manuel, for suggesting this. We certainly felt it was worth worthy of our time and worthy of discussion.

Craig:  Yeah. And thank you for being a loyal listener. We appreciate that.

Todd:  And if you enjoyed this podcast, you could please share it with a friend. We have lots of other back episodes you can check out. We’re on Google Play. We’re on iTunes. We’re on Stitcher. Anywhere you can find podcasts, we’re we’re there. And also, we have a Facebook page and a web page. If you like what you heard here, drop us a note. Let us know. Let us know what you thought of this film. Give us some suggestions for other films to see. Also, we’re starting to put up some written reviews to supplement the podcast that we do, written by yours truly right now.

Craig:  Please check

Todd:  those out. Those come out every Thursday on our website, and you can see those posted on our Facebook page as well. Until next time. I’m Todd.

Craig:  And I’m Craig

Todd:  with 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.