"Come with me into the tormented, haunted, half-lit night of the insane."

May 1, 2011 7:56 PM

Daughter of Horror (original title: Dementia) was a 1955 avant garde film featuring a noir style, a surrealist sensibility, and virtually no dialogue. A later version of the film even included an over-the-top voice over by none other than Tonight Show sidekick Ed McMahon, but like Blade Runner the flick is better off without the narration. Daughter of Horror is probably most famous for being the film playing in the theater overrun by The Blob. And with a few more surrealistic elements and peculiar dialogue added, this could have been done by David Lynch in a later decade. The film, recently featured on Turner Classic Movies, is available for free on archive.org.
posted by Celsius1414 (7 comments total)

It's a pity this post will likely be overlooked, it's a solid one. This is totally best of the web stuff.
posted by troika at 9:03 PM on May 1, 2011

Is the version on Archives.org the one with dialog? The comments there seem to support this.
posted by Catblack at 9:10 PM on May 1, 2011

Ok, just finished. Fucking splendid.

The pointing mob...that one got to me.
posted by Taft at 9:13 PM on May 1, 2011

I got this one from Kino Video on DVD, and it includes both narrated and un-narrated versions. Definitely worth seeing, it's really one of those movies about which it could be said that there's nothing else like it. I recently did a double feature for friends where I paired it with The Thief, made in (I think) 1951 and starring Ray Milland,which is another "silent" film in that there isn't any spoken dialogue.
posted by motown missile at 12:37 AM on May 2, 2011

Awesome post... thanks for this. Outstanding.
posted by kinnakeet at 4:16 AM on May 2, 2011

Is the version on Archives.org the one with dialog? The comments there seem to support this.

Yes. And it seems like every other version I find is the same overdubbed version. Ed McMahon is no Vincent Price, not by a long shot.
posted by filthy light thief at 6:52 AM on May 2, 2011

Boy, I can sure time my posts, eh? ;)
posted by Celsius1414 at 7:24 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]