Phonearl
Good start, but then it gets ruined
Asad Almond
A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.
Lela
The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.
tomgillespie2002
Rich kid Albert (Zooey Hall) is in an institute. We meet him at the beginning of the film trying to rape a nurse before he is apprehended. His doctor tells his mother that he is a lost cause and must be moved to a hospital for the insane. While being taunted by one of the male nurses there, Albert tricks him into watching one of the 'films' he's made, and ends up killing him and escaping. He arrives at his mother's house to kill her - he sees her as a whore who is not 'pure' enough. He instead comes across her housekeeper, who he taunts and kills. Yet when he meets her 11 year-old daughter Annie (Geri Reischi), they form a bond and Albert takes her away. For once he has met a girl who is pure and innocent, but the only problem are his violent sexual urges.The original name for this film was Poor Albert and Little Annie, which is a much more apt title for a film that is relatively unexploitative and character-driven. While they are scenes of violence, they are brief and contain very little blood or gore. The film concentrates more on the relationship between Albert and Annie, and the creepy fascination Albert has with her. Albert is clearly a misogynist, viewing every woman as filth who have lost their purity. Annie is sweet and innocent, and so Albert begins a strange love affair with her. He understands his urges are wrong, but he goes with it all the same.As interesting as I'm making the film out to be, you have to remember that this is a 70's grindhouse film marketed under the name of I Dismember Mama and was usually shown in a double bill with The Blood Spattered Bride (1972). This generally means that although the idea is certainly quite interesting, the execution is bad. Whereas the low- budget works in it's favour - the film has a grime to it that creates a feeling of sleaze - the film is peppered with long sections where nothing at all happens. The 80 minute running time feels much longer than it actually is, and although Hall in the lead is generally quite effective as the rich-boy psychopath, he cannot save the film from being a meandering missed opportunity.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com
tedg
Spoilers herein.Horrible production values in every respect except for the idea behind the script. I collect films that are based on Alice in Wonderland. This is one.The little girl is the typical Alice since the Disney version: long blond hair, light blue dress, white knee socks. Her identity shifting is the same as the books; in this case, the Red Queen (here the redhead) is named Alice who dies and is replaced by Alice. (As it happens, this little girl goes on to play a similar role in the Brady Bunch with a similar Alice.)They do the train thing and the boat thing more or less from the books. Then they end up in a warehouse of mannequins and mannequin parts that incongruously also features pictures of nude kids at the beach in from of which our monster stands.This is stolen from Kubrick's `Killer's Kiss' which in turn was inspired by Wells' `Lady from Shanghai.'There was a fairly intelligent idea here. Just botched, that's all.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.
William
David "Zooey" Hall who was good in FORTUNE AND MEN'S EYES is casted as a nut who kills a little girls mother, and tries be friends with her in another 70's low grade thriller. Paul Leder made a sequel 16 years later as KILLING OBSESSION with John saxon and John Savage playing Hall's part. I think Savage is a good actor, but Hall really made this part in the first one. The film really isn't a cult classic, but seems to became one because of the constant re-pressing Video Gems and Simtar did on the video cassette release, and the film F/X mentioned this film also. Not recommended.
emm
The alternative title of this film would make much better sense. Through some extremely unrelated footage, it does very good at hiding the truth of our "Poor Albert" who killed "Little Annie's" mama. That way, we can slowly await the climax. Horror and gore fans, be warned! You will be disappointed by the lack of severed body parts and / or any detailed scenes of graphic violence, and just because it's titled I DISMEMBER MAMA! Don't blame me if I said this! I watched this film from an out-of-print Simitar version that might have been cut from any over-the-top gore. So what? A good little El Cheapola drive-in thriller, but try not to get too high on your expectations.
