Dementia 13 (1963)

...The Most Terrifying Screen Experience Of Your Life! A Brand New Concept in Motion Picture Shock! A Thrilling New Creation of Terror Thru Sight and Sound, Filmed Entirely in the Shock-Packed Process of Dementia 13!
...You Must Pass the "D-13" Test To Prepare You for the Horrifying Experience of Dementia 13. If You Fail the Test...You Will Be Asked to Leave the Theater!

...Dementia 13 is a 1963 horror thriller released by American International Pictures, starring William Campbell, Patrick Magee, and Luana Anders. The film was written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola and produced by Roger Corman. Although Coppola had been involved in at least two nudie films previously, Dementia 13 served as his first mainstream, "legitimate" directorial effort. The plot follows a scheming young woman who, after having inadvertently caused the heart attack death of her husband, attempts to have herself written into her rich mother-in-law's will. She pays a surprise visit to her late husband's family castle in Ireland, but her plans become permanently interrupted by an axe-wielding lunatic who begins to stalk and murderously hack away at members of the family.

Corman offered Coppola the chance to direct a low-budget horror movie in Ireland with funds left over from Corman's recently completed The Young Racers, on which Coppola had worked as a sound technician. The producer wanted a cheap Psycho-copy, complete with gothic atmosphere and brutal killings, and Coppola quickly wrote a screenplay in accordance with Corman's requirements. Although he was given total directorial freedom during production, Coppola found himself fighting with Corman after the film was completed. The producer declared the movie unreleasable and demanded several changes be made. Corman eventually brought in another director, Jack Hill, to film additional sequences.

Corman also complained the film was too short, and insisted that it be padded by at least five minutes. Gary Kurtz, one of Corman's assistants at the time, recalled, "So we shot this stupid prologue that had nothing to do with the rest of the movie. It was some guy who was supposed to be a psychiatrist, sitting in his office and giving the audience a test to see if they were mentally fit to see the picture. The movie was actually released with that prologue."^[6] The prologue was directed by Monte Hellman.^[7] This cheap William Castle-style gimmick also included a "D-13 Test" handout given to theatre patrons that was ostensibly devised by a "medical expert" to weed out psychologically unfit people from viewing the film. The test consisted of such questions as "The most effective way of settling a dispute is with one quick stroke of an axe to your adversary's head?" and "Have you ever been hospitalized in a locked mental ward, sanitarium, rest home or other facility for the treatment of mental illness?", with Yes or No as the only possible answers.

Sweeney Todd (1936)

...forget the deppster, here's the tremendously named Tod Slaughter as the demon barber of fleet street as MojoTV's HorrorFest continues...

...A real curio here, with a totally old-fashioned production and the wonderfully Dickensian Tod Slaughter performance merging well with the intrinsically macabre tale. The subject matter, whether shown or suggested, is sinister, and played as gallows humour by Slaughter. The rest of the cast is hardly particularly impressive, but fits well enough into the story, allowing Slaughter centre-stage most of the time, although there is a bizarre foreign interlude that is somewhat out-of-place.

I love the recurring wistful, whistleable tune - absurdly Romantic, yet very low calorie British too - over the opening credits; very melodic and all the more striking as, besides this refrain, there is little or no other incidental music. The photography, could, I suppose, have been more conducive to 'atmosphere', but what is that but an expectation we have about noirish cinema? This is pure theatrical melodrama. The production is indeed spare and minimal, and we're left largely to enjoy the ripping old story and a fine 'turn' from the star. There are very good lines, presumably tailored to Slaughter's stage performances in the role; he delivers them with Dickensian gusto, in a gloriously theatrical performance, which is the main, if not quite the only reason to view this oddball, watchable antique piece.

Freaks (1932)

...MojoTV's HorrorFest continues with another early chiller...

...Grotesque and shocking motion picture from one of the first masters of horror pictures. Deals with the realities of what people who are physically deformed go through when working at the circus. In the film they are a close bunch who live by their own code of ethics. Told through the flashback structure, the movie tells the story of a group of circus performers who get revenge when there is an attempt of murder on one of their own to get his money. Like Straw Dogs(1971), Freaks(1932) is disturbing and relentless in its imagery...

...mungo says watch out for the tremendous skinning up action of prince randian the incredible living torso!!!...

Nosferatu (1922)

...we're thinking of halloween here at the rfsLounge, and in honour of all things grimly ghoulish, we're lining up a wholesomely unholy series of 13 seriously scary creature features in our HorrorFest, starting this weekend with a triple bill from waay back, where it all started, here's the original fangster himself...

...Nosferatu is a great horror movie (possibly the first ever according to some accounts), and one of the pinnacles of the German silent era of film-making. Made in the silent age by the German expressionist/auteur FW Murnau, the film has the genuine power to act creepy, odd, alluring, mythic, and beautiful by way of images and music that don't leave your mind once the film is over. It's like someone collected a stash of nightmares and pulled them together with the original Bram Stoker story of Dracula. Max Shreck, in his most notorious role (and apparently the only one really anyone's bothered to see) plays the monstrous Count Orlock, a vampire who comes out at night to tempt the living and, of course, to suck blood. Though this story of Dracula has been numerously repeated (even by the Hollywood version in the early 30s), this film is one of the prime examples of how horror SHOULD be done- dispense with cheap thrills or overloading with exposition.

A director like Murnau here, who had total artistic control (abeit the film not in circulation for many years), could transform Orlock's world into one of acute, deliberate angles, long deep shadows, and painting with light like some mad artist from the dark ages. One could almost claim that this, alongside Night of the Living Dead, changed the way audiences looked at horror films, that a style and presence could be wrung from characters that bring out the worst fears and dread in common people. Years from now, long into the digital age, there may still be room for of all things a silent, non-talking effort like Nosferatu, where the terror can still be felt through the black and white (sometimes tinted) photography and stark physical performances by Schrek and the others...