“Are you afraid of death by drowning?” enquires the poster for Dementia 13.

Never one to shy away from a conversation, I engaged as best I could. “Well, doesn’t sound too nice,” I replied.

“Have you ever attempted suicide?” it threw back my way. Flicking a glance over my wrists, I answered in the negative.

“Have you ever thought of committing murder?” a question to which I retorted, “Have you ever seen Loch Ness?” Feeling smug with the subtle subtext behind my snarky counter, I stood for some minutes before realising that this antiquated film poster was probably not going to commence with me something approaching a dialogue. No, for these are questions to be asked of oneself, a flame to the fuse of an interior monologue, not an artfully crafted conversation piece. But what they are also is a snapshot of the questions to be apparently shot at you in the “D-13 Test” – a cinematic aptitude test scheduled as preparatory ointment for the impending viewing of Dementia 13. Alas, my DVD loaded up before I got the results back; who knows what the verdict was?

Not forgotten and banished to the depths of obscurity like some of its Corman kin (Wasp Woman step forward), Dementia 13 still remains notable in the minds of the quotidian. The reason for this? It is, in effect, Francis Ford Coppola’s first feature. Whilst he may have laboured on some other low-budget fare prior to this, never before had there emerged a film that had even the possibility of enticing the roaming eyes of a '60s wild-child. Quite clearly with this in mind, the only question that crops up is: how does Dementia 13, the opening salvo to a long and chequered career in the motion movies, compare with that legendary masterpiece of which Coppola would be forever known, the artistic inventiveness and profundity that is Jack?

A good question and one that finds its answer somewhere in seventy-odd minutes of retro, drive-in theatre fun.

Out enjoying a night’s bickering on a rowing boat, a married couple spit insults at each other. Invective is punctuated by contemplations about the stipulations of a will belonging to the man’s mother. Deathly sick by the snub it gives her, the lady harangues the man, for she wants all the monies. Just as rejoinders concerning “to hell with you, nothing’ll come your way so long as I don’t right now die of a heart attack,” the man dies of a heart attack. However, thankfully he makes the best of the situation, bragging to the last breath that due to this whole dying malarkey she’ll get little more than a kick in the gut, and maybe a few Sliders DVDs, but fuck all riches.