DERANGED
(1973)Director: Alan Ormsby, Jeff Gillen
DERANGED
(1973)Come on down to the farm, 'cause
MGM's released a double feature of two in-demand rural horror flicks that make
a mighty fine twin bill! Unfortunately, only one of 'em is worth keepin.' Throw
the other 'un back, it's mighty foul. Let's dig into the trough, shall we?
Before ED GEIN came DERANGED.
Directed by the grossly underrated Alan Ormsby, with follow-up work by Jeff
Gillen and featuring early make-up work by Tom Savini, this is one low-budget
horror film that is must-see viewing by all horror film fans. Roberts Blossom
turns in one hell of a performance as Ezra Cobb (aka Ed Gein), a sheltered farmer
living in a drab Wisconsin town. After his mother passes away (coughing up blood,
natch), he can't live without her and digs her up a year later, bringing her
decomposing corpse back to his farmhouse! Soon he's digging up companions for
her and when he tires of that, he takes to killing beautiful young girls who
he 
feels
are dirty ('cause Mama said so). And the kicker: it's all true. This is the
most accurate filmed portrayal of Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein ever made
and will likely never be topped. The entire film has the aura of a twisted reality
that one fears they will never encounter. The isolated fields of snowy Wisconsin
have never seemed so chilling, and the drab color pallette of the film works
in its favor.
In the supporting cast is the
wonderful Marian Waldman of BLACK CHRISTMAS ("I love chocolates! They're
my one vice.....damnit!") and two unknown actress, Micki Moore and Pat
Orr, who make impressions as young victims. But the star of the film is Blossom,
who is believable as both a sweet innocent handyman and a psychotic necrophiliac.
One caveat: the on-screen journalist narrator would have been left out of the
film,
instead providing off-screen narration.
Fans of the film will be disappointed that a brief moment of Ezra popping an eyeball out of a human head with a spoon is not seen here. But MGM seems to have used the original AIP negative for this transfer, and this particular sequence was cut before AIP acquired the film. It's a shot of missing violence, which will undoubtedly disappoint many who will say it's "still cut," but it's not a jarring cut and the film still works and flows without it. DERANGED is a horror classic, plain and simple, and should be viewed by any self-respecting horror film fan.
MGM's
transfer of DERANGED is Anamorphic and letterboxed at 1.85:1, which is wider
than the earlier Moore Video version, but seems to fit just right. A few frames
with dirt on them pass by, but for the most part DERANGED looks pretty damn
good, and will definitely please those used to the previous ugly video transfers.
The mono audio flutters from loud to soft, but seeing as this is a pretty quiet
film with few moments of loud, pulsating violence, it seems adequate. Unfortunately
just a trailer is seen here (it's a doozy, though). A Bob Clark and Alan Ormsby
commentary would have been divine, but at least the film looks great.
Now all of you who were pleasantly
surprised by the effectiveness of DERANGED will be disappointed with MOTEL HELL,
an attempt at mixing horror and comedy and mostly failing. Rory 
Calhoun
is Farmer Vincent, a rural madman who runs his own smoked meats business with
his sister Ida (Nancy Parsons, a dead ringer for Pat Ast). The secret to his
meats: everyone knows it comes from humans! One sequence of the "garden"
of humans is particularly unsettling, but the film goes downhill from there.
A romantic subplot gets in the way, and soon the film becomes "Kill the
Bride-to-Be." I lost patience with the film, as it meandered from plotline
to plotline and while horror-comedies have worked in the past and would continue
to work for select films, this is not one of them. The mix is uneasy and not
well-executed; MOTEL HELL would work better as a straight horror film, even
though some of the comedy works it never meshes with the rest of the movie.
Watch this once and you'll soon forget it.
MOTEL
HELL doesn't look as good as DERANGED does, surprisingly enough, but is still
good-looking. Nice color contrast and very little dirt or speckling. The Stereo
Surround audio is good, but this is not a film that would benefit from such
a mix. It's another quiet horror film, but it still sounds good just the same.
Only feature: the trailer, which is about as good as the movie is.
Two films. One masterpiece, one stinkbug. It shouldn't be such a tough call. You get both of them for about $10, and if you don't like one, you're bound to like the other. Even better if you like 'em both. DERANGED is the price of the disc alone, MOTEL HELL feels like an added bonus that need not be revisited. Overall, a nice little double feature from MGM. Keep raiding those vaults! Y'all give us more, ya hear?! (Casey Scott)