Dementia (1955)

Dementia: Directed by John Parker, Bruno VeSota. With Adrienne Barrett, Bruno VeSota, Ben Roseman, Richard Barron. This film, with no dialogue at all, follows a psychotic young woman’s nightmarish experiences through one skid-row night.

“Finally after a long wait we can see the original version of u0026quot;Dementiau0026quot; which was re released two years later as u0026quot;Daughter of Horroru0026quot; , cut by two minutes and featured the notoriously bad voice over by the unknown (outside america) Ed McMahon , which was added as the re releasers thought that the public would not understand what was going on , it did the opposite and has unfairly given the film a bad reputation. Since the re release was shown , the film itself has pretty much disappeared and only terrible prints on the 1957 version have been available , giving a brief glimpse of what this film could have been. But now the full version has been released by Kino Films on DVD. The print is stunning (compared to the previously available anything would be preferable), and the restoration of the nightmarish u0026quot;jazzeyu0026quot; score is fault less. u0026quot;Dementiau0026quot; and u0026quot;Daughter of Horroru0026quot; (it was given a more salatious title to get audiences in) are both on the disc…with some great extras its worth a look. The story itself is a living/dreaming nightmare , the boundaries are jarred from the first scene as we pan in from the empty street into the apartment window and track up to the bed. The Gammin wakes and looks as if she has just had a bad nightmare , she gets up and walks over to a drawer , opens it and pulls out a switchblade , she looks down and sneers , pockets the knife and goes out into the night. From here on we either know that she it totally insane or that she is out to protect herself or both. We follow her journey into bars and meetings with pimps and flower sellers. I wont tell you anymore about it , otherwise it will spoil the fun of finding out for yourself but this film is a must and belongs on any serious collectors shelf.”