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Louise's (Luana Anders) husband (Peter Read) dies from a heartattack while rowing a boat, but since
Louise wouldn't inherit anything from his mother (Ethne Dunn) if it
would come out he was dead, she throws the corpse into the lake, making
up a stupid story to cover for his absence - she stays with his mother
& family at an Irish castle. But as is standard for failies living
in Irish castles, they are sort of creepy & have some terrible
family secrets. For you know, 7 years ago, Kathleen, daughter of the
family, died of causes yet to be determined, & since then, the
mother & her sons (the just demised John plus Billy [Bart Patton]
& Richard [William Campbell]) repeat the burial ceremony every year
- culminating every year in the mother fainting. This all gives Louise
some idea to drive the mother completely bonkers, thus killing her,
& it has something to do with some dolls & Louise going diving
in the lake in her underwear (sorry, that's the best explanation I can
give you, the film isn't very clear about that either). But the plan
somehow backfires when Loise finds a creepy shrine underwater &,
upon pankically emerging, is axed to death (major bummer). But who could
have done this ? The Mother ? Billy ? Richard ? Richard's fiancee Kane
(Mary Mitchell) ? The weird family doctor Caleb (Patrick Magee) ? Or the
poacher roaming the grounds ? Well no, not him, for he gets a taste of
the axe next. Then the mother is viciously attacked, though not killed
(at least I think not, the messed up script isn't too clear about that
either). Both Kane & the doctor find out about Billy's weird
nightmare (dead giveaway, actually). Then, rather out of the blue,
Richard & Kane marry, but at the wedding, doc Caleb can't help but
annoy Kane with some sinister warnings (why is really beyond me), so she
& Richard leave thier own party early, seemingly to have sex in the
hay. & while the doctor still tries to figure out the meaning of
Billy's weird nightmare, Billy decides to take the axe into his own
hands, attacking almost everyone in sight - which means, yes, he was the
serial killer in the first place, out of guilt for he accidently caused
Kathleen's death 7 years ago. Of course, Billy gets a taste of his own
medicine in the end.
For a standard AIP-drive-in-picture, this one is rather stylishly
done, mixing gothic atmosphere & contemporary settings quite well -
though it of course could not stand comparison to similar movies by
Mario Bava or Ricardo Freda from (roughly) the same era - & it is
certainly better than everything Coppola made since he has hit
mainstream-ground circa mid-80's (with such drivel as Peggy
Sue got Married, Godfather III & of course the abysmal Bram
Stoker's Dracula).
The script though (also by Coppola) is really
bad, seemingly just standard genre-situations cobbled together at will,
with no love for the genre as such & no grasp of the integral logic
such a story needs (& I can assure you, I am more than willing
to accept the occasional leap or lack of logic a whodunit-mystery might
just need to keep the things going).
Despite of what you might have heard, not Coppola's first movie -
that was the nudie Tonight for Sure from 1962. |
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