She keeps showing up at the most unexpected functions.
Roger Corman is a B-Movie legend as a director & producer – but what’s interesting is who’s worked for him. A short while ago I reviewed Galaxy of Terror (1981), and didn’t mention that the now-legendary James Cameron worked as Production Designer, and was responsible for many cheap, yet effective, special effects.
Here’s another one: Corman served as producer for Dementia 13 (1963), but who was the director? Now-legendary director Francis Ford Coppola. In this early Coppola-written psychodrama, an Irish family living in a castle is being slowly sucked into the black hole that is the young daughter’s death by accidental drowning. Why is her mother still so distraught? Who’s the chap with the axe who’s taken a dislike to the family? What of her three brothers, and their two spouses? Bodies start to pile up, but so do the psychotic attributes of these people, as the family fortune comes into play, as does the devilishly handsome doctor who’s paying almost unseemly amounts of attention to the mother.
And if the interesting effort isn’t enough, our Arts Editor vouched for the quality of the sculpture.
It’s an erratic but interesting effort. There are some plot holes here for sure, but when the little girl’s toys starting floating up from the back yard pond, well, that was a little creepy. Sure, the seams of the plot show here and there – character narrative is always a red flag – but there’s also well-done bits that keep the interest flowing.
Not that I recommend it, but it’s not beyond the pale to say that the devoted Coppola fan wouldn’t enjoy this early production of his.
