Directed by:
Martin Green
A friendly insurance salesman (Chuck Jamison) and his recently de-institutionalized alcoholic blonde wife (Kory Clark) move into a new house in Los Angeles. She has bloody visions of an axe murderer and severed body parts lying around the house, but is it all in her head? Turns out that the same house was a former murder site and the killer was never found. Hmmm. This extremely obscure film (not to be confused with the Joan Crawford film Strait-Jacket, which is actually good) includes a slew of ridiculous suspects, including a balding, sweaty gardener who crushes snails in his hand, a nosy neighbor inspired by Ruth Gordon's character in Rosemary's Baby, her fat slob / pervert husband, a guy at a nuthouse and guest star Aldo Ray as a "retired" cop Larry Craig, who had similar visions of the house when he investigated the original murders. There's a pinch of low-budget charm in this rock-bottom budgeted chiller (also out on video as Dark Sanity), but it' slow moving, poorly made and pretty boring for the most part. Some videos say it was made in 1982 or 1987, but the actual production year was 1978. There are rumors that the director and producers skipped town and never paid any of the actors. Seems to be a common occurrence with these low budget regional horrors. Get your money up front, people!
★1/2
2 comments:
I've had no luck tracking down very much about the 1982 movie STRAIGHT JACKET. Your mention that the film was made in 1978 is the first I've seen. As you say, most sources give later dates. The Galveston Daily News for Aug 19, 1982 has an interview with Austin filmmaker Robert A. Burns who admits to "having worked with [Aldo] Ray on 'some terrible little film' about four years ago." Burns went on saying that movie "never got released and never will be, thank God." That's all he says. Might this "terrible little film" that Burns was talking about be STRAIGHT JACKET?
Carl Thiel
rootinteuton@yahoo.com
I was looking into this title again and am now not sure about when it was filmed or when it was released. I think the 1978 came from Psychotronic but it MAY be incorrect. I need to do some research on this title when I get around to writing a proper review for it.
Seems the most likely culprit for that movie is Don't Go Near the Park, which was filmed in 1978 and also features Ray. Burns is credited as the art director, it fits the timeline and it's also terrible.
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