Dementia (Daughter of Horror)

A real oddity, Dementia (also known by it's alternate title, Daughter Of Horror), started life as a 10 minute short before Director John Parker expanded this essentially silent movie into a 60-minute feature.

The movies only real dialogue comes from a narrator, a trick used in a lot of sleazy sex pictures in the 60s such as the Olga series of S&M movies. He welcomes us in the horrific depths of a fractured mind, introducing us to a young woman who awakens in a low rent hotel. We follow her as she journeys through a night on the skid row streets. Along the way she meets an abusive husband, a washed up drunk and a sleazy pimp.

Flashbacks to childhood trauma and dangerous pursuits through the mean streets rack up the tension in this surprisingly effective low budget effort. It's a period piece of course and thus terribly dated, with the narrator throwing some choice lines that may cause a few giggles, but it's also a disturbing study of insanity and entrapment. Not a film to watch if you want cheering up after a tough day, Dementia succeeds in pulling off a balancing act between B-movie and arthouse aesthetics.