The word 'Delirious' is thrown around a lot when describing a film that is feverishly incoherent. But I feel if any movie is going to cleanly define itself as 'Delirium in celluloid form', it'll be the 1983 're-edit' of 'A Night to Dismember'. A…frankly BIZARRE experiment gone horribly HORRIBLY wrong.

So originally; 'A Night to Dismember' was a fully written and financed feature by Doris Wishman that was in the process of being finalised for a formal tender for distribution when (depending on your sources) either a disgruntled photolab employee destroyed 60% of the reels for the film out of disdane for Wishman…or 60% of the reels were lost to a photolab fire. The details have unfortunately been lost to history. But thats not something to stop THE Doris Wishman from having her day!

SO! armed with a mixture of the surviving 40% of her original vision plus a large amount of 'outtakes'. She set about remaking 'A Night to Dismember'. To do this, she rewrote the script to reuse the footage that had survived, Hired adult film star Samantha Fox to star in the newly shot footage, chopped about 15 minutes off the runtime and to save money, she decided to try and edit the footage herself and fill in any gaps with a narrator. 'A Night to Dismember' was supposed to release in 1980/81…But by the time Doris had refilmed and rebuilt the film, it was already late 1983. And the film would finally achieve distribution until 1989. And not without good reason.

Unlike the 'Original cut', this version of 'A Night to Dismember' entirely removes the grave yard 'host', and the entire opening plot set in the 1960s. Instead this film opens in 1980, in which Samantha Fox plays 'Vicki' a young girl who, after being framed for something she didnt do was placed into an asylum by her parents (reusing footage from the 60s story of the original cut) The film picks up in 1986 as Vicki has been released from the Asylum to try and allow her to reintegrate into society.

However, her parents are nervous of the release, worried that she may not be well enough and will have to go back. Vicki is also nervous, trying to act 'overly' normal despite still being a bit wobbly to try and reassure people around her that she's not crazy. Vickis siblings however 'Mary' and 'Billy' have other ideas. They're convinced that Vicki is still TOTALLY capable of murder, and they dont want her back in the family, because they see her as a risk.

As such, they hatch a plan to slowly convince Vicki that she IS in fact a murderer, that she's STILL insane, and if pushed far enough, they'll even kill to try and pin it on Vicki so she ends up back in the facility.

And…what follows is THE most horrendously cut piece of film that i've seen in a LONG time. as literal scraps of the original vision for this film are stitched into mismatching footage, mixed heavily with visual effects and TONS of linking narration to try and create a new work that drags horrendously and can barely stay lucid for more than 5 minutes at a time.

The plot is relatively straightforward, but jutts off into so many subplots and random side alleys, that it loses any sense of meaning or direction up until the last 15 minutes or so when it suddenly realises it only has 15 minutes to try and tie the whole thing together.

The pacing is glacial, as basic points are explained over and over again both by the narrator and the people in the movie. a lot of the dialogue has been muted almost entirely, relying on the narrator to fill in the gaps due to cast unavailability and budget issues in trying to bring this thing back online.

the structuring of the script feels like someones reading a novelette over shards of about 10 different movies with no direct context to tie any of it together.

The character lack any and all kind of depth. It still has some very light 'Carrie' vibes to me. But I really struggled to see the 'Halloween' influence in this version.

The directions a mess, because Wishman is trying to slam together 2-3 different movies that all already had clear coherent visions and aims into one clusterfuck of an experience that bordered on giving me a migraine. Its actually amazing to me that this film and its 'original cut' share the same foundations, because to me, this is a 'night and day' experience in terms of one feeling semi compitent and working to its strengths, and the other feeling like the cinematic equivalent of analysing vomit.

The cine is all over the place, as mentioned, the new footage doesnt match the old footage, and the new footage is also massively underlit doesnt follow standard composition, is soft and lacks any kind of personal investment from the director. It very much feels like a rush job, and not a pleasent one.

The edit was clearly assembled by blender, sound drops in and out constantly, the ADR doesnt match the cast and is reliant on cutaways to make it work, scenes stop and start abruptly, often mid word on delivery. Effects overlays are used HEAVILY to mask issues with the footage, cuts on the original film elements and to just…cover up shoddy workmanship. And the soundtrack crashes in and out of the film with poor mixing and balancing. I appreciate Doris was learning to edit on the job, and that this took 4 years to produce. But as an editor with tenure. This was horrendous. simply dreadful. probably one of the worst intentional edits i've ever seen.

The performances, which were mixed in the original cut, are stripped away to almost nothing here, Samantha Fox gets the most of the screentime. But she doesnt get much to do other than look worried and occasionally dub in a scream. The supporting cast get little to no actual dialogue left in this cut and are jump cut out of existence in terms of being able to guage their performances. Its horrendous.

As mentioned the soundtrack is predominantly library tracks, badly chosen library tracks (I believe it was basically whatever was licensed and to hand) cut badly, mixed badly, at times totally absent and essentially pebbledashed into this film with the careful hand of a Jigger Operator. Not *quite* the worst sound edit i've ever heard. But its up there…

I find it insane to say that there are two cuts of 'A Night to Dismember' and that one of them is probably my favourite Doris Wishman film, and one of them is almost certainly the worst Doris Wishman film i've ever seen…and possibly JUST shy of being one of the worst horror movies i've ever seen. its actually mind blowing to me just how easy it is to transform a work to that magnitude.

Heed my advice. The original 'lost' cut of 'A Night to Dismember' is far FAR superior than the 'official' release. If you've not seen either cut and are morbidly curious, the 'Lost' cut is absolutely the way to go between these two. Because this cut? has its own crash fatality report.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/a-night-to-dismember/