A Night to Dismember

A Night to Dismember; 1983 · USA · 68m 55s
Body count: 16
Directed by	Doris Wishman
Produced by	Larry Marinelli; Doris Wishman
Written by	Judy J. Kushner
Starring	Samantha Fox; Diane Cummins; William Szarka
Music by	Danny Girlando
Cinematography	C. Davis Smith
Editing by	Larry Marinelli
Language	English
Amazon · IMDb

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Title card.

Filmed in 1979, the release of A Night to Dismember was delayed until 1983 due to a mishap at Movielab, where the film was being processed. With most of her original footage destroyed, Doris Wishman rebuilt the film using what remained, adding a narrator (Tim O'Malley, the detective investigating the murders) to constantly explain the proceedings, often before they actually occur. At other times, the narrator simply reiterates what is being shown on-screen, voices the other character's dialogue for them, or tells us what they're dreaming of.

Gorgon Video and MPI offered a VHS in 1989, but its rarity left the film largely unseen until Elite Entertainment, Inc. released their DVD in 2001. John Charles writes in Video Watchdog #81 that "the anamorphic presentation ... almost certainly masks-off more picture information than it restores on the sides." The included commentary track from Doris Wishman and her cinematographer C. Davis Smith alternates between barbed insults, arguments, and occasionally relevant facts (such as the aforementioned film loss at the lab), and a promotional trailer contains a lot of the missing footage.

Quotes

Tim O'Malley (narrated): "What makes this story so strange is that all of the murders and deaths happened on October 15th. What makes this story even stranger is that most of the murders, and deaths, happened to the Kent brothers and their families. The Kents had lived in Woodmeyer Lake for the past 70 years. Then, suddenly, all of the Kents were dead."

Love in bright flashing colors.

Tim O'Malley (narrated): "Vicki felt as though someone faceless was making love to her in bright flashing colors that were changing from one second to the next."

Tim O'Malley (narrated): "If you were wondering how I came upon all these intimate details, the Kent family had one thing in common: they all kept diaries. Yes, fingerprints proved that Mary Kent had committed all of the murders that Vicki Kent had been accused of. Poor, innocent Vicki."

External reviews

Change your review for Vicki.

"Then the movie starts, with a complicated 10-minute narration describing a series of "murders and deaths" surrounding a family whose daughter has been in an asylum. While the narrator lays out a befuddling array of facts about "the case," Wishman cuts rapidly between footage of human butchery, lovely outdoor photography, and handheld shots of feet walking. Eventually A Night To Dismember settles into a steady rhythm: New characters show up, converse in overdubbed and asynchronous non sequiturs, creep around tacky apartments, and then meet their untimely ends to the accompaniment of disconnected pieces of stock music." --A.V. Club

"Judged by almost any standard, A Night to Dismember is one of the worst horror movies ever made. Failing to deliver the thrills and chills one expects from the genre, it also seems to lack such basic filmic qualities as acting, directing, cinematography, and editing. To call this film an incoherent mess would be praising it to the heavens. This is not exaggeration. The pure cinematic ineptitude on display is astounding, breathtaking — so much so that viewers may find their conceptions of cinema completely obliterated and rebuilt from the ground up, and may find themselves thinking that they are in the presence of ... art." --Reel.com

Distributors

Gorgon Video (1989) (USA) (VHS)
MPI (1989) (USA) (VHS)
Elite Entertainment, Inc. (2001) (USA) (DVD)

Image gallery

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Gorgon Video or MPI VHS covers.	Elite Entertainment, Inc. DVD.	Elite Entertainment, Inc. DVD.
Title card.	1: Sleaze by bath (death). Death by axe (sleaze). See video gallery for clip.	2: Death by axe (accidental).
Sleaze by breasts (unfulfilled).	3: Sleaze by full-frontal nudity (death). Death by pruning shears (sleaze).	3: Sleaze by full-frontal nudity (death). Death by pruning shears (sleaze).
4: Death by hanging (self-inflicted).	5: Death by spike.	6: Death by machete.
6: Death by machete.	Front page news!	7: Death by machete, decapitation.
7: Death by machete, decapitation.	8: Death by machete, decapitation, fire (insurance). They'll never fondle again.	8: Death by machete, decapitation, fire (insurance). Use tongs for safety!
8: Death by machete, decapitation, fire (insurance). LOST: mannequin head.	9: Death by axe, heart removal (insurance).	9: Death by axe, heart removal (insurance).
10: Death by car.	11: Death by axe, decapitation.	Sleaze by striptease (unfulfilled).
Sleaze by sex. Love, in colors.	Sleaze by sex. Love, in more colors.	See video clip below.
12: Death by icepick.	13: Death by axe.	13: Death by axe.
14: Death by buried alive.	7/8: Death by machete, decapitation, fire (insurance). Flashback of splurting.	15: Death by strangulation.
Get it done, America!	16: Death by axe.