Dementia 13 (1963)

Director:

Francis Ford Coppola

Writers:

Francis Ford Coppola (written by)
Jack Hill (second unit writer)

Release Date:

18 November 1966 (Denmark)

Genre:

Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

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!

Plot:

When her husband John has a heart attack while out in a rowboat on the lake, Louise Haloran throws his...

Plot Keywords:

Pond | Heart Attack | Ceremony | Rowboat | Irish

Cast

William Campbell	...	Richard Haloran
Luana Anders	...	Louise Haloran
Bart Patton	...	Billy Haloran
Mary Mitchel	...	Kane
Patrick Magee	...	Justin Caleb
Eithne Dunne	...	Lady Haloran (as Ethne Dunn)
Peter Read	...	John Haloran
Karl Schanzer	...	Simon
Ron Perry	...	Arthur
Derry O'Donavan	...	Lillian
Barbara Dowling	...	Kathleen

Directed by
Francis Ford Coppola		(as Francis Coppola)

Writing credits
Francis Ford Coppola		(written by) (as Francis Coppola)
Jack Hill		(second unit writer)

Produced by
Roger Corman	....	producer
Marianne Wood	....	associate producer

Original Music by
Ronald Stein

Cinematography by
Charles Hannawalt		(director of photography) (as Charles Hanawalt)

Film Editing by
Stuart O'Brien
Morton Tubor		(as Mort Tubor)

Art Direction by
Al Locatelli		(as Albert Locatelli)

Set Decoration by
Eleanor Coppola		(as Eleanor Neil)

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Richard F. Dalton	....	assistant director (as Richard Dalton)
Jack Hill	....	second unit director

Art Department
Edward Delaney	....	sculptor

Sound Department
Joseph Gross	....	sound
Liam Saurin	....	sound

Camera and Electrical Department
John Vicario	....	camera operator
Michael Vines	....	best boy

Editorial Department
Donald Shebib	....	assistant editor (uncredited)

Music Department
Les Baxter	....	composer: stock music (uncredited)

Other crew
George Brady	....	technician
Patrick Brady	....	technician
William Joseph Bryan Jr.	....	technical advisor (as Dr. William Joseph Bryan Jr. M.D.)
Eyemonn Callian	....	production assistant
Patrick Doyle	....	technician
Paul Julian	....	title designer
Michael Purcell	....	technician
Angela Wadlow	....	script supervisor

Production Companies

• Filmgroup Productions

Distributors

• American International Pictures (AIP) (1963) (USA) (theatrical)
• Astral Films (1963) (Canada) (theatrical)
• K-tel Video (1984) (USA) (VHS)
• Madacy Entertainment (1998) (USA) (DVD)
• K-tel Video (2001) (USA) (DVD)
• Marengo Films (2001) (USA) (DVD)
• Troma Team Video (2001) (USA) (DVD)
• UAV Entertainment (2001) (USA) (DVD)
• Navarre Entertainment (2002) (USA) (DVD)
• Arcadia Entertainment (2003) (Greece) (DVD)
• Madacy Entertainment (2003) (USA) (DVD)
• SlingShot Entertainment (2003) (USA) (DVD)
• 303 Recordings (2004) (USA) (DVD)
• Alpha Video Distributors (2004) (USA) (DVD)
• DMEG (2004) (Sweden) (VHS)
• Multimedia Group (2004) (Brazil) (DVD)
• Reel Media International (2004) (worldwide) (VHS)
• Vidtape (2004) (USA) (DVD)
• Weton Wesgram (2004) (Netherlands) (DVD)
• Dutch FilmWorks (DFW) (2005) (Netherlands) (DVD)
• GoodTimes Home Video (2005) (USA) (DVD)
• Manga Films (2006) (Spain) (DVD)
• Reel Media International (2007) (worldwide) (all media)
• Punto Zero (2008) (Italy) (DVD) (as Enjoy Movies)
• Castle Communications (198?) (1994) (Finland) (VHS)
• Finnkino (2009) (Finland) (DVD)
• Regal Films International (1964) (UK) (theatrical)
• Beam Entertainment (2000) (Japan) (DVD)
• Cable Video (????) (USA) (VHS)
• Cine FX (????) (France) (DVD)
• Community Chest (1980) (Canada) (video) (Betamax)
• Continental Home Vídeo (????) (Brazil) (VHS)
• FilmAnnex (2006) (worldwide) (all media)
• Hollywood Home Theatre (????) (USA) (VHS)
• I.V.C. (2000) (Japan) (DVD)
• International Visual Corporation (2000) (Japan) (DVD)
• LS Video (????) (USA) (VHS)
• Liberty Home Video (????) (USA) (VHS)
• Nostalgia Video (????) (USA) (VHS)
• Ovation Home Video (????) (USA) (DVD)
• Something Weird Video (SWV) (199?) (USA) (VHS)
• Video Treasures (1987) (USA) (VHS)
• World Video Picture (????) (USA) (VHS)

Other Companies

• Aer Lingus  thanks
• Guinness Breweries  thanks
• Irish International Airlines  thanks
• Screen Time Images  film restoration

Also Known As:

Runtime:

75 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White | Color (colorized)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:M (DVD rating) | Australia:R (original rating) | UK:15 | USA:Unrated | West Germany:16 | Netherlands:12 | Finland:K-16 (1994) | Canada:13+ (Québec) | Canada:PG (Ontario)

Filming Locations:

Ardmore Studios, Herbert Road, Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland

Company:

Filmgroup Productions

Trivia:

Francis Ford Coppola's first Director credit, as "Francis Coppola".

Goofs:

Continuity: In the movie's latter half Dr. Caleb enters a work shed and discovers the body of Louise and the lifelike Kathleen doll. Carefully picking up the doll, he closes the shed door, and immediately in the next scene is shown walking with the doll in his arms and a cigar in his mouth.

Quotes:

Louise Haloran:Castle Haloran is a bit perplexing, a very strange place really, old and musty, the kind of place you'd expect a ghost to like to wander around in.

Movie Connections:

Featured in In the Dark (2009) (V)

Eerie Irish Horror Story

******SPOILERS****** Early 1960's collaboration of director Francis Ford Coppala and film producer Roger Corman of a horror story set in and around Ireland's Haloran Castle. The movie has really two stories that intersect each other halfway into the movie which sets off a series of brutal ax murders which for the time, the early 1960's, are as graphic as anything seen in films back in those days.

John Haloran, Peter Reed, dies of a sudden heart attack, which seemed self-induced, rowing a boat with his wife Louise, Luana Anders, on board one night. Getting nothing from John's estate if he dies before she does which was stated in John's will Louise frantically tries to hide John's body by throwing him overboard into the lake. Louise ties an anchor to his waist to keep John from floating to the surface and being discovered.

Back home Louise writes a letter attributing it to John stating that he's gone on an urgent business trip to New York and may not be back for some time. Louise then plans to talk John's emotionally unstable mother Lady Haloran, Eithne Dunne, into re-writing the will and include her in it with or without the survival of her husband. The next day John's older brother Richard, William Campball, is set to see his fiancée Kane, Mary Mitchel, who's arriving from the USA to meet Richard's family in Ireland. When Kane is picked up by Richard's younger brother William, Brent Patton, at the airport William tells Kane that tomorrow is the seventh anniversary of their 13 year-old sister Kathleen's, Barbara Downing, tragic death and the family is having it's annual ceremony to commemorate it.

Louise knowing how much Lady Haloran misses her beloved daughter Kathleen tries to manipulate her by trying to prove to her that she's somehow in touch with the dead Kathleen through communications with her from the "other side". This is to get her to like Louise, who Lady Haloran despises, and get her to change the will that she wrote up that left Louise out in the cold if her husband dies in terms of his inheritance. Trying to convince Lady Haloran that she's really in communication with her daughter Louise tries to stage an event by taking some toys from Kathleen's room and planting them at the bottom of the pound where she drowned seven years ago.Louise plans at the right moment to have the toys rise to the surface in Lady Haloran presence to prove, to Lady Haloran, that she's telling her the truth.

What Louise doesn't know, by reviving suppressed memories of Kathleen's death, is that she set off and put into motion the person who was responsible for it to commit a number of bloody ax murders with Louise being his first victim.

Despite a shoe string budget and a unknown cast "Dementia 13" is a pretty effective Horror/Mystery movie.The murderer is more or less reviled almost at the beginning of the film but in such a way to make you not realize it. In a good attempt of misdirection by Francis Ford Coppala the audience is made to look somewhere or at someone else in the movie which keeps you guessing who the killer is until the very end. Coppala's use of striking black and white photography as well as the effective use of sounds and shadows greatly adds to the suspense as well as creepiness of the movie.