Dementia 13 (1963)

(On Cable TV, May 2021) If you’re into that whole “first film by famous filmmakers” thing, then Dementia 13 should be on your must-see list: it’s the directorial debut of writer-director Francis Ford Coppola, and it already shows his cinematic flair. The story itself isn’t anything special — a psychological thriller avowedly made by producer Roger Corman to cash in on the success of Psycho: There’s murder, gothic intrigue, gaslighting and a psycho killer. Where Dementia 13 does rather well, however, is in the execution: Director Coppola is markedly more ambitious than writer Coppola, and far more than producer Corman: Accordingly, his 70-minute potboiler thriller is elevated by atmospheric direction that almost takes the film into classic-horror territory rather than exploitation chiller. There’s no real way around the fact that Dementia 13 remains a cheap horror film, executed on a threadbare budget by someone with more ambition than means. But it’s that ambition that keeps the film intriguing today — you can trace a line from this to the atmosphere of Coppola’s 1992 take on Dracula without hesitation.