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Demons of the MindRating:
Release Date: 23 July, 2002 Retail Price: $19.98 OUR Price: $17.98 You SAVE: $2.00! Cast: Complete Cast (14 total) |
Demons of the Mind Reviews
An incoherent snoozer.
By the time this movie ends, if you've followed the incoherent plot, you probably won't even care about the characters. No character is developed beyond a sheet of stale cardboard, so we have rather empty people saying rather empty things. Hammer films always fell victim to some dialogue cliche (basically, all the follies of Gothic fiction) in order to keep the movie moving along, but this dialogue? Wow. And this plot? One long winding string of "I don't care" after another. There's something of a plot here: one guy is crazy; he's afraid his kids are crazy; he wants a doctor to cure them; the doctor says he can; the doctor then says that the children's "illness" is a result of the first guy exercising his "will" over the children; then the first guy tries to kill his kids. Oh yeah, and somewhere in there, the first gets weepy and frustrated over he and his wife's conjugal bed. Uh-huh. Or something like that. One reviewer said this movie has great scenery, and I agree; but the characters populating that scenery are the real problem -- especially in a movie that wants so desperately to be character-driven. A character-driven movie without characters is bound to fall flat on its face. And "Demons of the Mind" does exactly that. Sorry Hammer. Sorry Peter Sykes. Thanks for "To the Devil...A Daughter." That was a creepy, unnerving movie, and it was driven forcefully by good characters and interesting actors. Too bad you didn't keep this one on the shelf.
A neglected gem
Although often overlooked, this ranks with Peter Sasdy's "Hands of the Ripper" as one of the finest and most unconventional films produced by Hammer in the 1970s. It looks gorgeous - thanks partially to expert cinematography by the great Arthur Grant, and partially to the use of real locations instead of the usual studio sets. Peter Sykes' direction is outstanding; the film's lush visual poetry carries an erotic charge that is a far cry indeed from the embarassed girlie-magazine imagery of so many of Hammer's "sexy" films of the period ("Lust for a Vampire," for instance). The performances (by an exceptionally fine cast) are generally excellent, although Robert Hardy overacts badly. The film also contains some of Harry Robinson's best music, most notably in an early sequence that runs for several minutes without any dialogue at all.
One of the film's most attractive features is the way in which it consistently turns the conventions of Hammer horror on their heads. Wild coach rides, sinister mansions, torch-bearing villagers, a series of monstrous murders of busty barmaids - all the usual Hammer paraphernalia are here, but many of them are put to unconventional or at least subtly different uses. The story itself is equally unusual, with shades of Mesmer and a complete absence of supernatural forces. For all its novelty, however, you may find it a bit dull. But with so many incidental pleasures, who cares? This is a fine and enjoyable film - one of the last really solid efforts produced by Hammer before its gradual disintegration.
The DVD commentary track is definitely worth a listen. It features Sykes, screenwriter Christopher Wicking (as always, an intelligent and refreshing interrogator of the horror genre), and actress Virginia Wetherell, who has only a small role in the film but delivers some of the most interesting commentary. All in all, another fine addition to Anchor Bay's very welcome Hammer Collection.
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