Movie Review: Dementia 13 (1963)

Dementia 13 (1963) written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Conniving blonde Louise (Luana Anders) wants her husband John's mother (Eithne Dunn) to change her will so that her children get the inheritance rather than some charity. She eggs him on, causing him to have a heart attack while they are out rowing. Rather than report the accident (because then she couldn't inherit anything), she covers up the death, tossing his body overboard with an anchor attached. She's already at the family castle in Ireland, so she gets rid of John's things and fakes a letter saying he's gone to New York on urgent business. The other two brothers arrive to be part of the family's annual ritual mourning their dead sister. The ritual is a bit weird and the mother is a bit superstitious. Louise attempts to capitalize on Mother's vulnerability only to be horribly ax-murdered when she sets up a spooky occurrence in the lake. More deaths ensue as the family's madness runs its course.

B-movie empresario Roger Corman produced this film and it does have that low-budget, semi-exploitation feel to it. The tense scenes are ratcheted up with harpsichord music, which sounds more quaint that terrifying. One or two scenes drag out too long. The story is a little underdone and some things that happen don't make sense. At one point, they drain the pond and discover, not the husband's dead body or his sunken luggage, but a submerged monument to the dead daughter. Things get wrapped up in the end but I can't say I found it satisfying.

Recommended only if you are a Corman or Coppola completist; otherwise there's not much to see here. Move along.