"The Haunted and the Hunted" is an appropriate and much more meaningful a.k.a for Coppola's sublime debut, focusing on a cursed and tormented Irish family. The plot is grim and creative and seemly starts out as a psychological portrait about a family reuniting in the parental castle to have a memorial ceremony in honor of the deceased daughter. The girl drowned in the estate's pond 7 years before and the mother still can't deal with the loss. But then the story pretty quickly turns into a guessing game of "who is the mad axe-murderer who dwells around the mansion?" Coppola himself delivered a well-constructed screenplay but the power of this film merely lies in the solid Gothic atmosphere instead of ingenious plotting. It's not that hard to guess the homicidal maniac's identity but the butchering he/she commits is disturbingly filmed and rather frightening. The scene in which this killer drags one of his victims through the meadow is efficiently eerie! Francis Ford Coppola's maybe owes his success to Roger Corman but it's definitely the producer's style and trademarks that triumph here. The depressing Irish castle and other dark set pieces make the wholesome look extra chilling and uncanny. The acting is overall decent but the best performance is unquestionably given by the brilliant British genre-actor Patrick Magee (Asylum, Tales from the crypt and A Clockwork Orange).
Review of Dementia 13
