Format: DVD from LaSalle Public Library through interlibrary loan on laptop.
Roger Corman might be known for low-budget schlock, but you have to hand it to the man: he was if nothing else a great judge of directorial talent. Among his protégés is the great Francis Ford Coppola, a man who in many ways defined American film in the 1970s. Corman gave Coppola his start, and a large part of that start came in the film Dementia 13. Coppola punched out a short script over three days and filmed using the same sets and actors as another of Corman’s films provided he could do things on the cheap and work around Corman’s shooting schedule.
The result of those constraints gives us a film that shows a good deal of ambition but also shows all of the strings and gaps of needing to work on the quick with actors involved in another film. Personally, I find it interesting to see the work of a director best known for feats of cinematic brilliance like The Godfather Trilogy, Apocalypse Now, and The Conversation making a film that hints on the supernatural and involving an axe murderer and a woman swimming in her lingerie. There’s something wonderfully lurid about it.
