A Night to Dismember

Last updated
A Night to Dismember
A Night to Dismember film poster.jpg
Original VHS cover
Directed by Doris Wishman
Written byJudith J. Kushner
Produced by
  • Lorenzo Marinelli
  • Doris Wishman
Starring Samantha Fox
CinematographyC. Davis Smith
Edited byLawrence Anthony
Music byDanny Girlando
Production
company
Juri Productions
Distributed by MPI Media Group
Release date
  • June 14, 1989 (1989-06-14)(U.S.) [1]
Running time
  • 70 minutes [2] [3]
  • 79 minutes (original version)
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

A Night to Dismember is a 1983 [4] American slasher horror film, produced and directed by Doris Wishman. The film stars pornographic actress Samantha Fox as a psychotic young woman, recently released from a psychiatric institution, who is driven to kill by an ancestral curse. It was the first and only foray into the horror genre for Wishman, who mainly directed and produced sexploitation films.

Contents

Inspired by the success of slasher films such as Halloween (1978), Wishman signed on to direct and produce the film, derived from a screenplay by Judith J. Kushner. Principal photography took place in New York in 1979, with the bulk of filming taking place at the homes of Wishman and her friends. The film had a troubled production history: Wishman alleged that multiple reels were destroyed in the photo processing lab, resulting in her having to re-film sequences to graft onto the existing footage, as well as adding in stock material in order to make the film into a releasable final product. The film was completed in 1983 after four years of post-production, and subsequently released on VHS by MPI Media Group in 1989. In 2001, it was released on DVD by Elite Entertainment.

In August 2018, a video master of the original "destroyed" cut of the filmpreviously thought lostwas discovered in the possession of the film's cinematographer, C. Davis Smith, and uploaded on YouTube. This cut of the film features actress Diana Cummings in the lead role, as well as an entirely different plot; Cummings had been replaced by Fox after the purported destruction of Wishman's film reels.

Plot

The Kent family of Woodmire Lake is thought to be subject to an ancestral curse that causes each of them to be murdered or commit familicide. Bonnie Kent is among the first, found hacked to death with an axe by her sister Susan; after committing the murder, Susan slips in the bathroom and falls on the blade, killing herself. Later, Broderick Kent's wife Lola is found murdered in her bathtub; he initially denies involvement, but soon confesses to the murder before hanging himself. Broderick's niece, Vicki Kent, was later sent to an asylum for murdering two neighborhood boys in August 1981.

Six years later, Vicki is released from the asylum, apparently cured of her homicidal tendencies. Her release is against the behest of her brother, Billy, and sister, Mary, both of whom want her recommitted. Upon returning home, Vicki's parents, Adam and Blanche, struggle to help her assimilate. Vicki attempts to rekindle a romance with her ex-boyfriend, Frankie, and is soon plagued by hallucinations. One night, Frankie and his new girlfriend are murdered by an unseen assailant during a sexual tryst. The killer decapitates Frankie before burning his head in the fireplace.

With her home life turbulent, Vicki attempts to visit her uncle Sebastian and Aunt Ann; her great aunt Bea is also staying at the home. They turn her away, however, deeming her and her siblings all insane and unsafe to be around. The next morning, when they attempt to leave their house, Sebastian is murdered with a hatchet before Ann is run over with a car. Bea is pursued inside the house and decapitated, and the killer wraps her head in a cloth before storing it in a cupboard. Later while ruminating at the lake, Vicki is chased by a zombie-like male figure who emerges from the water, only later to find it was Billy attempting to scare her.

Later, Vicki attempts to seduce Tim O'Malley, a detective investigating the murders of Sebastian, Ann, and Bea, by performing a striptease. She subsequently hallucinates a sexual encounter between the two. Billy again attempts to torment Vicki, stalking her in a Halloween mask in hopes of driving her back into madness. That night, Mary awakens from a nightmare in which her entire family takes turns stabbing her to death. While Adam and Blanche attempt to console Mary, the home's electricity suddenly shuts off. Adam goes to check the main braker, and is stabbed to death with an ice pick by an unseen assailant. Shortly after, Blanche is brutally murdered in her bed.

Billy finds his parents' bodies and flees the house, only to be clobbered to death with a rock by Mary, who, convinced her family had tried to kill her, murdered him out of fear. Back in the house, she hears a voice beckoning her, and traces it to a hat box, in which she has a vision of Vicki's severed head. Realizing she is in fact responsible for the murders, Mary retreats to the basement where she continues to hear disembodied voices calling her name. She flees outside into the woods, where the voices continue to taunt her.

O'Malley arrives at the house and finds the numerous bodies, along with Vicki, who appears to be in a fugue state, and holding a bloody hatchet. He chases her through the house and the two engage in a physical fight. She strikes him several times with the hatchet, but he manages to overpower her and strangle her to death. In voiceover narration, O'Malley recounts his discovery of diaries from each of the family members, which reveal that Mary committed all the murders Vicki had been accused of, including the murder of the two boys that warranted her psychiatric confinement. Meanwhile, Mary departs Woodmire Lake in a taxi, and murders the cab driver with a hatchet.

Cast

Production

Conception

The screenplay for A Night to Dismember was written by Judith J. Kushner, and the film conceived by Wishman in the wake of the success of slasher films such as Halloween . [6] In order to secure financing, Wishman made a trailer for the film using stock footage and snippets shot specifically for advertising. [7] A financer from Chicago agreed to fund the production based on Wishman's trailer, giving her what she described as "a hefty deposit to finish the film." [8]

Casting and filming

Filming took place in New York in 1979, [9] with many of the locations being the private residences of Wishman and her friends and family. [10] Portions of exterior filming (such as the forest scenes, and the sequence in which the two boys are murdered in the graveyard) in Westchester County. [11] Additional exterior footage was shot outside Wishman's apartment in Queens along the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway, [12] while rooms in Wishman's apartment were used to film several interior scenes. [13] The final scene in which Mary's character is picked up by a taxi was shot in a rural area on Long Island. [14] According to Wishman, she paid the taxi driver $25 to shoot footage of the car's advertisement that read "Get it done! America." [15]

Some of the cast members were friends or family of Wishman; Miriam Meth, who portrayed Vicki's mother, was Wishman's cousin, who later worked as a makeup artist on Days of Our Lives . [16] Miriam's house was used as a filming location as well, with her own character's death sequence being filmed in her garage. [17] According to Wishman, pornographic actress Samantha Fox was cast as Vicki after sending a headshot and "writing really nice things" in a letter addressed to Wishman. [18] Louis Birdi, an editor who had worked with Wishman on previous film projects, appears as a stand-in for Billy during the sequences in which the character wears a Halloween mask. [5]

The special effects were provided by Les Lorrain, visual effects by John A. Bezich; cinematographer Smith's son, Chris, also helped contribute special effects. [19]

Post-production

According to Wishman, several reels of the film were destroyed while in the possession of Movielab, a photo processing studio Wishman had hired to process the film. [20] By some accounts, the reels were destroyed in a fire, [9] while Wishman claimed that a "disgruntled employee" destroyed them when the company went bankrupt. [21] Wishman estimated that the incident left her with "less than half-a negative" of film. [22] "I had about sixty percent of the original film, and the rest were outtakes," she recalled. "It was very difficult to concoct another story that made any sense." [23] As a result, Wishman was forced to piece the film together with outtakes and footage from other projects. [6] [9] She spent eight months entirely rewriting the screenplay, [24] followed by four years of editing the film into a releasable final product. [6] Wishman cut the film together herself, having recently learned the basic elements of film editing. [25]

Release

Distribution

The film was advertised for sale in Variety in 1983. [3] Though some contemporary scholars have alleged the film was not released, [26] it was given a release in the United States directly to video [27] on June 14, [1] 1989 [28] by MPI Media Group. [1] [29] The following year, the VHS was suspended from production along with several other MPI-owned titles, such as Faces of Death , Horror Hospital , and Twitch of the Death Nerve , due to rights issues. [30]

Elite Entertainment released a special edition DVD of the film in 2001, which featured an audio commentary with Wishman and cinematographer C. Davis Smith. [31] [32] On December 17, 2019, Frolic Pictures released the film on DVD as a double feature with Effects (1980). [33]

On January 1, 2011, the Blue Sunshine film center in Montreal screened a digitally-restored print of the film. [34] On June 4, 2016, the film was screened at the Film Forum in New York City as part of the "Genre is Woman" film festival, and featured an introduction by Wishman biographer Michael Bowen. [35]

Critical response

Buzz McClain of AllMovie called the film "insultingly bad, infuriatingly terrible, and, worse, it's somehow managed to achieve cult status over the years." [36] Author Brian Albright noted that the film is an "incomprehensible, yet compelling, post-modern mish-mash of gore and nudity." [9] Michael Weldon in The Psychotronic Video Guide (1996) noted the film as "a disastrous meeting of Wishman and H.G. Lewis" accentuated by "gore, lots of it." [3] Paper magazine, in a 1998 review, referred to the film as "a baffling utterly fascinating mess." [27] In a review published by Tim Lucas of Video Watchdog , it was noted: "A Night to Dismember is to narrative film what falling down the stairs is to walking erect." [37] Lucas specifically lambasted the film's narrative structure, and its tendency for events to be described via audio narration rather than shown. [37] James Craddock in the Video Sourcebook gave the film its lowest rating (a "bomb"), noting: "Wishman has the reputation that equals Ed Wood Jr.'s as an auteur of alternative classics. This piece of junk cements her place in the cinematic hall of shame." [38]

Todd Martin from HorrorNews.net panned the film, calling it "pointless", also stating that the film "doesn’t have anything going for it whatsoever". [39] DVD Talk awarded the film two out of five stars, writing, "if there is such a thing as BAD bloodletting this is certainly it." [40] Mick Martin of Video Movie Guide wrote: "A must for bad-movie buffs, this insanely disjointed slasher movie features almost no dialogue, actors whose clothes and hairstyles change in mid-scene, and a tacked-on narration desperately trying to make sense of it all." [2] Noel Murray of The A.V. Club wrote of the film: "Between the artful nature scenes, the ugly interiors, and the kitchen-sink soundtrack, A Night To Dismember could almost be an avant-garde Guy Maddin homage to wincingly awful cinema. Instead, it's likely sheer coincidence that A Night To Dismember has become its own entity, a convoluted exercise in viewer endurance that perfectly evokes its title." [41]

Discovery of lost print

On August 9, 2018, Bloody Disgusting reported that the extended cut of the film, previously thought destroyed, had been posted on YouTube. [42] The print was discovered when Ben Ruffett, the founder of the Hamilton Trash Cinema, inquired to cinematographer C. Davis Smith about acquiring a copy of the film to screen. [43] Smith did not own the film's official VHS release, but did have a copy of the original extended cut on tape. [43] This version features actress Diana Cummings in the lead role, and runs nine minutes longer than the previously released version. [a] In letter correspondence, Smith noted:

You have in your hands a rare copy of the “LOST” version of “A NIGHT TO DISMEMBER.”

I only know of three other existing copies of the film. One to a friend in Manhattan, one to another friend in Pennsylvania and the copy I have. Now you are among the elite to join the club. (There are no benefits!)(Unless it is possible nightmares!)

The story according to the Gospel of Doris is that a disgruntled employee of MovieLab, (the film processing company in which all the processing and printing work was accomplished) ruined much of the negative to the original version. “WHY” has never come to the forefront of our knowledge. (Or even IF !)...

Somehow the film was distributed in Europe in the original version. A lot of people are unaware of this...  My information could possibly be conjecture. But I have seen paperwork from the distributor of the film showing that at least one print was sold as European Rights. [43]

Smith also divulged in the letter that he had been hired as a replacement cinematographer, and that Wishman recast Fox in the lead role as she needed revenue to "salvage" the remaining footage after the reels had purportedly been destroyed. [43] He also alleged that Fox paid Wishman $2,000 to appear in the film. [43]

Notes

  1. The "lost" cut of the film that surfaced in August 2018 on YouTube runs approximately 1 hour and 19 minutes. [43]

Related Research Articles

<i>The Last House on the Left</i> 1972 American horror film by Wes Craven

The Last House on the Left is a 1972 rape and revenge horror film written and directed by Wes Craven in his directorial debut, and produced by Sean S. Cunningham. The film stars Sandra Peabody, Lucy Grantham, David Hess, Fred J. Lincoln, Jeramie Rain, and Marc Sheffler. Additionally, Martin Kove appears in a supporting role. The plot follows Mari Collingwood (Peabody), a teenager who is abducted, raped, and brutally murdered by a group of violent fugitives led by Krug Stillo (Hess). When her parents discover what happened to her, they seek vengeance against the killers, who have taken shelter at their home.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chesty Morgan</span> American exotic dancer and actor

Ilana Wajc, better known by her stage name Chesty Morgan, and also known as Liliana Wilczkowska and Lillian Stello, is a Polish-born, retired exotic dancer of Jewish descent, who also starred in two films directed by Doris Wishman. Morgan was billed as having a 73 inch bust measurement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Doris Wishman</span> American filmmaker

Doris Wishman was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. She is credited with having directed and produced at least 30 feature films during a career spanning over four decades, most notably in the sexploitation film genre.

<i>Black Christmas</i> (1974 film) 1974 film by Bob Clark

Black Christmas is a 1974 Canadian slasher film produced and directed by Bob Clark, and written by Roy Moore. It stars Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder, and John Saxon. The story follows a group of sorority sisters who receive threatening phone calls and are eventually stalked and murdered by a killer during the Christmas season.

<i>House of Dark Shadows</i> 1970 film by Dan Curtis

House of Dark Shadows is a 1970 American feature-length horror film produced and directed by Dan Curtis, based on his Dark Shadows television series. In this film expansion, vampire Barnabas Collins searches for a cure for vampirism so he can marry a woman who resembles his long-lost fiancée Josette.

<i>Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2</i> 1987 film by Lee Harry

Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 is a 1987 American slasher film edited, co-written with Joseph H. Earle, and directed by Lee Harry. It is the sequel to 1984's Silent Night, Deadly Night, and was followed by Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out! in 1989. Its plot focuses on Ricky Caldwell, the brother of Billy Chapman, and his own trauma regarding his parents' Christmas Eve murders, which triggers his own killing spree. The film relies heavily on flashbacks, utilizing approximately 30 minutes of stock footage from the original film.

<i>Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II</i> 1987 film by Bruce Pittman

Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II is a 1987 Canadian supernatural slasher film directed by Bruce Pittman, written by Ron Oliver, and starring Michael Ironside, Wendy Lyon, Louis Ferreira, and Lisa Schrage. It follows a high school student who becomes possessed by Mary Lou Maloney, a student who died at her high school prom in 1957. A sequel to the slasher film Prom Night (1980), it was originally intended to be a standalone film titled The Haunting of Hamilton High, but was retitled in order to capitalize on the success of the original Prom Night. The only story connection between the two films is that they are set at the same high school. However, both films were executive produced by Peter R. Simpson.

<i>Blood Song</i> 1982 American slasher film directed by Alan J. Levi

Blood Song is a 1982 American slasher film directed Alan J. Levi, produced by Frank Avianca and Lenny Montana, and starring Frankie Avalon and Donna Wilkes. It follows a crippled young woman in a coastal Oregon town who is stalked by a hatchet-wielding psychopath from whom she once received a blood transfusion.

<i>Axe</i> (film) 1977 American horror film written and directed by Frederick R. Friedel

Axe is a 1974 American independent horror film written and directed by Frederick R. Friedel and starring Leslie Lee. Its plot follows a trio of criminals who lodge at a rural farmhouse where a teenage girl resides with her disabled grandfather. After one of the men attempts to rape her, she enacts revenge.

<i>Blood Rage</i> 1987 American slasher film by John Grissmer

Blood Rage is a 1987 American slasher film directed by John Grissmer, written by Bruce Rubin, and starring Louise Lasser, Mark Soper, and Julie Gordon. Set on Thanksgiving, the film follows a woman and her adult son who are stalked at their remote apartment community by the son's unhinged twin brother who has escaped from a psychiatric institution after allegedly murdering a man years earlier.

<i>Bad Girls Go to Hell</i> 1965 American film by Doris Wishman

Bad Girls Go to Hell is a 1965 American sexploitation film written, produced and directed by Doris Wishman. The film stars Gigi Darlene, Sam Stewart, Barnard L. Sackett, and Darlene Bennett. The film contains soft-core sexual situations and is considered one of the director's first "roughies", "a trash-cinema genre that flourished briefly in the years before court cases legalized hardcore porn, and Wishman was one of the important figures in the form."

<i>Halloween</i> (1978 film) Film by John Carpenter

Halloween is a 1978 American independent slasher film directed and scored by John Carpenter, who co-wrote it with its producer Debra Hill. It stars Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, P. J. Soles, and Nancy Loomis. Set mostly in the fictional Illinois town of Haddonfield, the film follows mental patient Michael Myers, who was committed to a sanitarium for murdering his teenage sister one Halloween night during his childhood; he escapes 15 years later and returns to Haddonfield, where he stalks teenage babysitter Laurie Strode and her friends while his psychiatrist Dr. Samuel Loomis pursues him.

<i>Madhouse</i> (1981 film) 1981 Italian film by Ovidio G. Assonitis

Madhouse is a 1981 Italian slasher film directed and co-written by Ovidio G. Assonitis, and starring Trish Everly, Dennis Robertson, Allison Biggers, and Michael Macrae. The plot follows a schoolteacher in Savannah, Georgia being stalked by her psychopathic twin sister in the days leading up to their birthday. The film's original title takes its name from a poem called "There Was a Little Girl" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

<i>The Witch Who Came from the Sea</i> 1976 film by Matt Cimber

The Witch Who Came from the Sea is a 1976 American psychological horror film produced and directed by Matt Cimber and starring Millie Perkins, Lonny Chapman, Vanessa Brown, Peggy Feury, Rick Jason, George Buck Flower, and Roberta Collins. The film centers on an emotionally scarred woman who goes on a killing spree after taking a job as a waitress in a seaside bar. Its title refers to The Birth of Venus, which figures in the film. Dean Cundey served as associate photographer on the film.

Splatter Farm is a 1987 horror film directed by the Polonia Brothers and starring them along with Todd Smith.

<i>Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet</i> 2009 American film directed by Frank Sabatella

Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet is a 2009 American slasher film written and directed by Frank Sabatella, and co-written by Elke Blasi. The film stars Bill Moseley, Nate Dushku, and Danielle Harris.

<i>The Amazing Transplant</i> 1970 American film by Doris Wishman.

The Amazing Transplant is an American 1970 sexploitation film, written, produced and directed by Doris Wishman. The film stars Juan Fernandez, Linda Southern, and Larry Hunter.

<i>The Final Girls</i> 2015 American comedy horror film

The Final Girls is a 2015 American comedy slasher film directed by Todd Strauss-Schulson and written by M.A. Fortin and Joshua John Miller. The film stars Taissa Farmiga and Malin Åkerman, with supporting performances from Adam DeVine, Thomas Middleditch, Alia Shawkat, Alexander Ludwig, and Nina Dobrev. The plot follows a group of high school students who are transported into a 1986 slasher film called Camp Bloodbath.

<i>Prom Night</i> (film series) Canadian horror film series

Prom Night is a Canadian slasher film franchise that comprises a total of five feature films, the first four of which are centered around events at the fictional Hamilton High School. The first film, Prom Night (1980), was a slasher film directed by Paul Lynch and produced by Peter R. Simpson, focusing on teenagers being stalked and murdered by a masked killer at their prom. The film was a box-office success, grossing nearly $15 million. The following sequel, Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (1987), was envisioned as a standalone film, but producer Simpson and his company, Simcom, refitted it as a sequel to the original Prom Night. Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II, a supernatural-themed slasher film, introduced the character of Mary Lou Maloney, a vengeful young woman who died on her prom night in 1957; its only connection to the first film was that both films take place in the same high school.

References

  1. 1 2 3 A Night to Dismember [VHS]. ASIN   6301338316.
  2. 1 2 Martin 1995, p. 885.
  3. 1 2 3 Weldon 1996, p. 402.
  4. Thrower 2007, p. 43.
  5. 1 2 Wishman & Smith 2001, event occurs at 37:05.
  6. 1 2 3 McKendry 2010, p. 62.
  7. Wishman & Smith 2001, event occurs at 2:03.
  8. Wishman & Smith 2001, event occurs at 2:11.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Albright 2012, p. 263.
  10. Wishman & Smith 2001, events occur at 4:05, 6:52, 9:27.
  11. Wishman & Smith 2001, event occurs at 4:05.
  12. Wishman & Smith 2001, event occurs at 6:52.
  13. Wishman & Smith 2001, event occurs at 9:27.
  14. Wishman & Smith 2001, event occurs at 1:04:30.
  15. Wishman & Smith 2001, event occurs at 1:05:55.
  16. Wishman & Smith 2001, event occurs at 6:59.
  17. Wishman & Smith 2001, event occurs at 47:21.
  18. Wishman & Smith 2001, event occurs at 8:00.
  19. Wishman & Smith 2001, event occurs at 24:16.
  20. Wishman & Smith 2001, Event occurs at 4:22.
  21. Wishman & Smith 2001, event occurs at 2:27.
  22. Wishman & Smith 2001, event occurs at 3:10.
  23. Wishman & Smith 2001, event occurs at 4:40.
  24. Wishman & Smith 2001, event occurs at 3:28.
  25. Nastasi, Alison (June 2, 2016). ""She Was An Outsider Artist": Doris Wishman Biographer Michael Bowen on the Sexploitation Filmmaking Queen's Life and Career". Flavorwire . Archived from the original on December 25, 2017.
  26. Quarles 2010, p. 149.
  27. 1 2 Paper Staff (March 1, 1998). "The mother of exploitation: Doris Wishman". Paper . Retrieved August 11, 2018.
  28. Martin, Douglas (August 19, 2002). "Doris Wishman, 'B' Film Director, Dies". The New York Times . Archived from the original on March 23, 2019.
  29. Kane 2000, p. 509.
  30. "Mondo Video: Phantom of the Movies". New York Daily News . February 6, 1990. p. 52 via Newspapers.com. Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg
  31. "Night to Dismember, A (DVD)". DVD Empire. Retrieved May 24, 2013.
  32. Thrower 2007, pp. 485–486.
  33. "A Night To Dismember / Effects". Amazon . 17 December 2019. Archived from the original on February 21, 2020.
  34. "Doris Wishman's A Night to Dismember". Blue Sunshine Film Centre. Archived from the original on May 31, 2019.
  35. "BAD GIRLS GO TO HELL & A NIGHT TO DISMEMBER introduced by Doris Wishman biographer Michael Bowen". Film Forum . Archived from the original on July 6, 2016.
  36. McClain, Buzz. "A Night to Dismember (1983)". AllMovie . Retrieved June 20, 2012.
  37. 1 2 Lucas, Tim (September–October 1994). "A Night to Dismember". Video Watchdog . No. 25. Cincinnati, Ohio: Tim & Donna Lucas. p. 24. ISSN   1070-9991.
  38. Craddock 2008, p. 2061.
  39. Martin, Todd (23 August 2013). "Film Review: A Night to Dismember (1983)". HorrorNews.net. Todd Martin. Retrieved 4 March 2019.
  40. Gross, G. "A Night to Dismember: SE : DVD Talk Review of the DVD Video". DVD Talk.com. G. Noel Gross. Retrieved 4 March 2019.
  41. Murray, Noel (March 29, 2002). "A Night To Dismember (DVD)". The A.V. Club . A.V. Film. Retrieved August 9, 2018.
  42. Squires, John (August 9, 2018). "Long Lost Version of 1983's 'A Night to Dismember' Was Just Found and Uploaded to YouTube". Bloody Disgusting . Archived from the original on 2018-08-10. Retrieved August 11, 2018.
  43. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Decloux, Justin (August 8, 2018). "WATCH: The LOST version of Doris Wishman's A NIGHT TO DISMEMBER". Film Trap. Archived from the original on 2018-08-10. Retrieved August 11, 2018.

Sources