Ed's Review Dot Com

Camera 2 Productions, Century Films

William Bill McGhee, Annie MacAdams, Rosie Holotik, Gene Ross, Camilla Carr, Jessie Lee Fulton, Jessie Kirby, Harryete Warren, Rhea Macadams

Stephens Sanitarium is a remote psychiatric hospital run the the unique Dr. Stephens (Michael Harvey). Nurse Charlotte Beale (Rosie Holotik) shows up by the request of Dr. Stephens to work in the assylum, only to find that Dr. Stephens has just been killed by a hatchet to the head by one of his patients. Dr. Geraldine S. Masters (Annabelle Weenick) is in charge and is not very happy to have outsiders come in, but is finally convinced to let Nurse Beale stay temporarily. But as time passes it becomes increasingly hard to tell which people are crazy and which are nuts. Maybe there’s a good reason why Dr. Masters does not want outsiders in the place.

This serious B movie is very campy. This is very typical of the 70’s drive-in flicks of the age. Originally titled as The Forgotten, this was later re-released as Don’t Look in the Basement, which is the most common title you will see today. This film seems to be in the public domain at this point, so many versions are available at a low cost. You might well find this in the DVD bin of the local 99 cent store. The gore is pretty weak by the newer slasher films, but there is a lot of blood and gore atypical of these kinds of films, so it must have been pretty scary in it’s day. There is no wonderful acting here. It’s all very low cost and simple, but the love of the genre shows. Like some of the other “classics” of this era such as Night of the Living Dead, this one goes right for the scare factor and does it pretty well. When you’re in the mood for a classic low budget 70’s horror flick, this is as good as any to choose. Not great cinema, but a good reminder of a time in the past when were spent summer evenings in our car, eating hot dogs and popcorn and listing to a move on a HUGE billboard sized screen on a cheesy 3 inch speaker hung in the window. $2.00 a carload, fill up the station wagon and come on out to the picture show.

Many copies of this film are sold in a “double feature” package. Why not spend a night when you have nothing to do taking a trip back in nostalgia.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog