Search - Night of the Living Dead/Dementia 13 on DVD

K. K. (GAMER)
Reviewed on 6/23/2024...

Dementia 13 - Poor quality black and white video and audio with a drag along story!

A pair of classic low-budget black & white horror films

Lawrance M. Bernabo | The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota | 03/31/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This DVD brings together too of the best of the low-budget black & white horror films of the 1960s. I first saw "Night of the Living Dead" when I came home one afternoon and discovered that the Iowa City Public Library Channel on cable was showing the film. I have to admit, I was rather surprised that this cult classic horror film would be on at a time when kids could come home and discover it on television (one of the living dead is naked and they do like to eat human flesh), but Iowa is a state that thinks caucuses are a good way of selecting presidential nominees, so what can I say? But this is a horror movie that is even scary in the daytime with all the lights on.



"The Night of the Living Dead" is a true horror classic, which is rather surprising when you take into account that director George A. Romero made the film in 1968 for $114,000 without a cast of first time actors (extras who playing the zombies were paid $1 and a t-shirt that said "I was a zombie on Night of the Living Dead"). Filmed in black and white with Romero as the cinematographer, this film has a technical proficiency that is missing from other low-budget classics like "Dementia 13" and "Carnival of Souls." You can take or leave the various sequels to this film, but this one has to be on everyone's Top 10 list when it comes to horror films.



The horror comes from the situation and the simple effectiveness of the slow moving, silent zombies in their growing numbers, their arms reaching out to find human flesh to eat. Barbara (Judith O'Dea) runs to an abandoned house, where she is joined by Ben (Duane Jones). After fending off the first attack of the living dead, they discover five more people hiding in the basement: Harry Cooper (Karl Hardman), his wife, Helen (Marilyn Eastman), and their daughter (Kyra Schon), along with a young couple, Tom (Keith Wayne) and Judy (Judith Ridley). Harry wants to hide out in the basement, but refuses to be trapped down there, and the two spend more time arguing about what to do than doing anything. They listen to the radio and watch the TV, learning that the dead are rising to eat the living, and try to figure out a way of getting out of the death trap in which they find themselves. Meanwhile, the little girl in the basement is getting weaker.



The only real weakness in the film is the attempt to explain why the dead are walking around as flesh-eating ghouls (which is, I believe, redundant), which has something to do with a satellite and scientific mumbo-jumbo that really does not mean anything to the people trying to survive against the growing horde of zombies. Fortunately, the "why" does not matter in this story; just the "how" in terms of taking these creatures down. Besides, if anything clinches this one it is the end of the film, both with its final twist, and the use of grainy still photographs to show the end of the tale. Few horror movies, whatever their budgets, have an ending this memorable.



"Dementia 13" was the result of producer Roger Corman's infamous "apprentice" program at AIP. Corman was shooting his own film in 1963 and let Francis Ford Copolla get his first director's credit by shooting "Dementia 13" on the same location (Why "Demenita 13"? Because there was a 1955 entitled "Dementia"). "Dementia 13" is just a nice little low-budget horror film for which the biggest complaint is that the pace is a tad slow. The story is set in Ireland and if it bears a strong resemblance to Corman's film adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe, well "duh." When her husband drops dead, Louise Haloran (Luana Anders) know she will be cut out of the Haloran family inheritance so she pretends he is in New York on business and heads off to the ancestral home in Ireland to try and get in good with the family. But at Castle Haloran the family is engaged in a morbid ritual marking the death of John's sister Kathleen, who drowned in the pond six years earlier. The question of inheritance becomes more interesting once family members start being hacked to death by an ax-murderer.



Despite this development "Dementia 13" ("The Haunted and the Hunted" in the U.K.) is not a gory film, but more of a character study, which alone makes it somewhat atypical for the time and genre. Copolla manages to creat atmosphere so that the film is more of a psychological exercise than it is a splatter flick, and the submereged scream is certainly a memorable touch. The most recognizable faces in the film are Patrick Magee as Dr. Caleb and William Campbell, soon to go to a small measure of fame in a couple of episodes of the original "Star Trek" and a place in Beatles trivia as the man who supposedly had plastic surgery to replace Paul McCartney in the Beatles after his "death" (he was also married to Judith Exner, and anybody who has links to JFK, the Beatles and Star Trek is a pop culture immortal). "Dementia 13" is not a classic horror film and not on the same level of "Night of the Living Dead," but it is above average and makes for a decent pair of such films to put together on one DVD (the only better pairing I have seen would be "Night of the Living Dead" and "Carnival of Souls")."

60's Horror At Its Best

R. A. Brezenski | NE,USA | 07/28/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Two great horror movies of the 60's, together is great to watch over & over on a rainly night. Goerge Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" is one of the best & still works today & Francis Coppoal,"Dementia"is just as good to watch. So go out & buy them both together & set back & enjoy the horror,that is still great."

Very good bargain, cool horror flicks.

Jeff | 09/14/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Surprisingly good quality for the money, glad I made the purchase."