A cloaked figure (he’s kind of like a half-assed Crypt Keeper) appears in a snow covered cemetery to tell us the story of Mary Kent (Diane Cummins). He says if a person is struck by lightning in a certain part of their brain, it can give them “Satanic powers”. That’s exactly what happens to poor Mary.
After surviving the lightning strike to the cranium, Mary begins hearing voices that urge her to kill those who have wronged her. When she finds her boyfriend Frankie (Frankie Sabat) is cheating on her with her best friend Sandy (Sandy Sabat), the pair are later found with their heads chopped off. Then, her brother Billy (Bill Szarka) steals money and blames it on Mary. It doesn’t take long for him to get bludgeoned to death and buried alive in a shallow grave. Another heartless friend is axed in the bathtub. Mary eventually finds herself pregnant, and when her parents want her to give it up for adoption, they are later found hacked up.
So far, so not bad. About halfway through the movie, Mary dies while giving birth. We then flash-forward to her daughter Vicki (Dee Cummins) celebrating her sixteenth birthday. Her mother’s voice soon begins haunting her, and eventually convinces “Crazy Vicki” to kill those who have wronged her as well.
Apparently, the story goes that the original version of A Night to Dismember was burned by a disgruntled employee at the film lab. This forced writer/director Doris Wishman to hastily assemble a new version on the fly using nothing but outtakes and deleted scenes. Others claim that the star of the version that was eventually released (porn star Samantha Fox) paid Doris to put her in the movie and she used the money to film new scenes with her. That would explain why so much of the original footage was scrapped and why Fox is nowhere to be found in this version. Lucky(ish) for Doris fans, the original “Lost” version was found and uploaded to YouTube, which is where I finally caught up with it.
I watched the released version a few years ago and it was godawful. It is by far Doris’s worst effort. However, it’s been a while since I saw it, so I can’t say how much the two versions really differ. One thing is for certain, it’s a Doris Wishman movie through and through. There’s weird narration and voiceovers, out of synch sound, sunset footage recycled from Satan was a Lady, awkward phone conversations, the familiar apartment setting, scenes of women looking at themselves in the mirror, a death in a bathtub accompanied by an overly bombastic score, a solarized sex scene, a negative image dream scene, and of course… FEET!
While The “Lost” Version is better than the one that was eventually released, it is by no means good. The first half is coherent, but it doesn’t exactly work. At least the body count is healthy, although Doris really goes overboard with the shots of shadows of assorted weapons silhouetted against a white wall. The murders are all appropriately grungy looking, and there is one truly priceless line of dialogue to be found. (After Mary flips out, her mother asks, “When did you menstruate last?”)
The second half (which seems to be heavily inspired by Carrie) is a real chore though. There’s a lot of pointless slow-motion scenes and extraneous narration to help cover some of the big gaps in time (and logic). While it’s noticeably weaker than the first half, this stretch of the film does have some decent gore. It’s a long time coming, but the heart-ripping, head-crushing, finger-hacking finale is pretty good. I probably wouldn’t have been so hard on it if it wasn’t for all the damned slow motion. If Doris played all these scenes at their regular speed, the movie probably would’ve been sixty minutes instead of eighty.
Here’s the review of the version that eventually wound up being released:
A NIGHT TO DISMEMBER (1989) ½ *
(Originally posted October 31st, 2019)
Doris Wishman is my kind of filmmaker. She goes out there and makes the movie her way. You can look at one frame of a Doris Wishman film and know it was made by Doris Wishman. If it’s got lots of close-ups of feet, no synch sound, and looks like a series of people’s last known photographs, you can bet your ass it’s a Wishman flick.
When Wishman is cooking, she often hits it out of the park. Anyone who’s ever sat through Let Me Die a Woman, Deadly Weapons, or Nude on the Moon will attest to that. However, her misses are about as bad as they come. (The Amazing Transplant, anyone?) That’s why it pains me to say A Night to Dismember just might be her worst flick.
It’s not really her fault. You see, according to legend, some disgruntled lab employee burned the film print. Wishman then had to scramble, cutting the movie together using odd ends, discarded footage, and whatever scraps she could find. She added some newly shot footage, and then cobbled it all together and released it on an unsuspecting public.
Trying to follow the story will give you mental whiplash. It revolves around the bizarre murders of a troubled family. Things kick off with a gruesome ax murder in the tub, but then the murderess slips and falls on her ax. Most of the time, the editing is so rapid fire that simple scenes are hard to figure out. Shots are repeated, slow motion is used for like, two seconds, shots alternate from night to day, and there are long negative scenes; all of which are usually accompanied by overbearing, out of place library music.
A narrator constantly runs his mouth to try to make sense of the plot. (It’s really nothing more than your standard let’s-drive-a-relative-crazy plot, but the way it’s told is just confusing as fuck.) This movie has more narration than The Creeping Terror and Monster a Go-Go combined. Occasionally, we do hear a snippet of dialogue or two, but it’s clearly just Wishman’s voice dropping in a few lines here and there.
I like Wishman. That’s why it hurts to say this flick is a disaster of epic proportions. Still, it’s a miracle it exists in any way, shape, or form considering the circumstances. That alone is a testament to Wishman’s tenacity.
Recently, a print of the original version was miraculously found. I don’t know if my nerves could stand to watch that one so soon after subjecting myself to this. Judging solely from the evidence here, I’d say they burned the wrong movie.
DORIS DECEMBER RANKINGS:
1. Deadly Weapons
2. Let Me Die a Woman
3. Love Toy
4. Bad Girls Go to Hell
5. Double Agent 73
6. The Immoral Three
7. Indecent Desires
8. Come with Me My Love
9. My Brother’s Wife
10. The Hot Month of August
11. The Sex Perils of Paulette
12. Another Day, Another Man
13. A Taste of Flesh
14. Nude on the Moon
15. Diary of a Nudist
16. Too Much Too Often
17. Gentlemen Prefer Nature Girls
18. Hideout in the Sun
19. Satan was a Lady
20. Blaze Starr Goes Nudist
21. The Amazing Transplant
22. A Night to Dismember (The “Lost” Version)
23. The Prince and the Nature Girl
24. Passion Fever
25. Keyholes are for Peeping or Is There Life After Marriage?
26. A Night to Dismember
Well, that brings Doris December to a close. If you still can’t get enough retrospectives of cult directors, be sure to keep your eyes peeled as I will be ringing in the New Year with another set of reviews spotlighting a B movie auteur. Join me for Janua-RAY when we will be celebrating all things Ray Dennis Steckler!
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