Trailer: A slasher tears a family apart in remake of Coppola’s Dementia 13

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

The 1963 film DEMENTIA 13, which was written/directed by Francis Ford Coppola and produced by Roger Corman, is in the public domain, which is why it's often included in sets of older movies, right alongside the likes of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and CARNIVAL OF SOULS. But while lots of people have exploited NIGHT's public domain status over the years to make their own films and stories based on the concept, DEMENTIA 13 has remained untouched, as far as I've seen – which is surprising, because it has a very simple set-up of people getting knocked off at one location and has the Coppola association.

More than fifty years after the Coppola/Corman film was released, DEMENTIA 13 has finally gotten a remake, directed by Richard LeMay from a screenplay by Dan DeFilippo and Justin Smith. The story: 

A vengeful ghost, a mysterious killer, and a family where everyone has a secret converge in one night of terror.

This new version of DEMENTIA 13 stars Julia Campanelli, Ana Isabelle, Marianne Noscheze, Channing Pickett, and Christian Ryan.

The remake will be released in theatres on October 6th, with a VOD release following on October 10th. With the release so near, a trailer has now arrived online, and judging by this preview LeMay and the writers have taken the set-up deeper into slasher territory, as you would expect. The original film featured an axe-wielding killer, so this time around that killer wears a mask, pursues victims like a busty jogger, and might be impervious to bullets.

This could turn out to be a decent slasher, and we only have to wait a few weeks to find out.