‘When the forces of evil infuse your body will you scream out…’
Help Me… I’m Possessed is a 1974 American horror film directed by Belgian-born Charles Nitzet (Voodoo Heartbeat, The Ravager). The movie stars co-writer Bill Greer, in his only acting role, co-writer Deedy Peters, and Lynne Marta.
The film remained in the cinematic wilderness for many years, having only a limited theatrical run in 1976. In 1984, it was released on VHS by Video Gems as The Possessed. The movie features an electronic synth score by an uncredited composed.
In the American desert, a young couple has been brutally murdered and the local sheriff immediately suspects fishy goings-on at the castle-like sanitarium run by reclusive Doctor Arthur Blackwood (Bill Greer).
Assuring the sheriff that his work there is entirely above board and consists of little more than helping disturbed individuals return to society, he does little to allay the police’s fears, not least when his loopy doll-hugging singing sister appears.
Indeed, we soon learn that the doctor is perhaps not entirely qualified, housing a collection of chained up, scantily clad ladies, a Catweazle-alike prisoner and a hunchback in his basement, all at the mercy of his insane experiments, designed to rid them of madness.
When not being whipped and brutalised, these ‘volunteers’ suffer an even worse fate if they don’t behave or illicit positive results, being killed by snake, guillotine and being hacked up to fit the wrongly-sized coffins.
The arrival of the doctor’s new wife (Peters) sees his plans begin to unravel as disappearing members of staff and her cranky husband arouse her suspicion. Worse still, when she uncovers his experiments she learns that the harnessed ‘evil’ extracted from the patients has manifest itself as something malevolent and hideous…
Written by both Peters and Greer (somewhat remarkably considering her later life as the girlfriend of David Soul and his as writer and producer of TV shambles Charles in Charge), Help Me… I’m Possessed! feels like an amalgam of Al Adamson‘s films, slightly restrained H.G. Lewis fare and lunatic imprisonment films like Blood Sucking Freaks.
The acting standards are all of the same unremarkable quality but are engaging and fun, particularly Greer who looks completely ill-fitting in the role, and all the better for it. Though the torture and bloodletting are tame in comparison to Lewis’ films, they are still brutal and heartless enough to raise a serious question mark over the film’s initial PG rating!
The title is somewhat misleading (it was filmed with the more apt working title Nightmare at Blood Castle, there’s no possession in the film as such, only the mysterious evil presence which is represented by Lovecraftian red tentacle-like appendages wafting at the camera.
Coming to a conclusion just before it starts to go around in circles once too often, perhaps the most arresting aspect of the film is the avant-garde electronic score, completely unnerving and genuinely excellent though the film does not name any composer, only an Al Bart in the sound department, who evidently did not go on to better things.
Buy: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk
Grimy and fun, Help Me… I’m Possessed! was released on DVD by Code Red on a double-bill with Blind Dead director Amando de Ossorio’s Demon Witch Child, the connection being that they were both known as The Possessed in various releases.
Daz Lawrence, MOVIES & MANIA
Buy/rent: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk
Choice dialogue:
Doctor Blackwood: “Dead? There is no such thing. Death is a fabrication of the mind.”
Sheriff Taylor: “I’ve seen a lot of dead bodies, doctor. Mutilated bodies. Accident victims. I’ve never seen anything like this. Never!”
Doctor Blackwood: “When I saw Mr Zolak’s head severed from his body, I felt a definite sexual thrill. I must be very careful.”
Free to watch on YouTube [1080p HD]:
Cast and characters:
- Bill Greer … Doctor Arthur Blackwood
- Deedy Peters … Mrs Diane Blackwood
- Lynne Marta … Melanie Blackwood – The First Power; Blood Beach
- Jim Dean … Sheriff Taylor
- Tony Reese … Ernest, the Chauffeur
- Blackie Hunt … Eleanor, the Nurse
- Dorothy Green … Edith – The Castle Dweller – The Munsters TV series
- Barbara Thorsen … Redhead Patient
- Pepper Davis … Deputy Sheriff
- Pierre Agostino … Hunchback – Slashed… short; Witchcraft; Las Vegas Serial Killer; The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher
Filming locations:
Bronson Canyon, Los Angeles, California
Plot keywords:
avant-garde music | castle | cat | Charlie Chan | desert | guillotine | horribly mutilated | knife | mad doctor | nurse | sanitarium | sheriff | sister | statue
