Directed by John Parker • 1953 • United States
Starring Adrienne Barrett, Bruno VeSota, Ben Roseman

Using only sound effects and an eerie score (by “ultramodernist” composer George Antheil and West Coast jazz pioneer Shorty Rogers) to plumb the mind of a psychopathic killer, experimental filmmaker John Parker created one of the most disturbing, unforgettable, and singular films of the 1950s. A young woman wanders the streets in a nightmare through an expressionist landscape of mutilations, patricide, and paranoia, waking in her apartment amid clues that suggest it wasn’t a dream. Banned by the New York State Film Board, which deemed it “inhuman, indecent, and the quintessence of gruesomeness,” DEMENTIA was championed by none other than Preston Sturges, who called it “a work of art . . . It stirred my blood, purged my libido.”