Tubi Tuesday: “Dementia: Part II” (2018/2021)

Shot in 30 days on a dare, “Dementia: Part II” is a scrappy horror-comedy that’s as bizarre and charming as its behind-the-scenes story.

When insurance and fertilizer salesman Harold P. Warren met Stirling Silliphant at an El Paso, Texas, coffee shop, he bet the veteran screenwriter he could make a horror movie all on his own and began sketching an outline on a napkin on the spot. Technically, Warren won the bet because he did, in fact, make a horror movie. Unfortunately, that movie was Manos: The Hands of Fate.  

A much more successful example of a movie made on a bet is today’s entry, Dementia: Part II, an in-name-only sequel to the 2015 psychological horror original. The story of how this wacky little indie horror-comedy was made is as compelling as the movie itself, and it’s impossible to talk about one without the other.  

In 2017, Josh Goldbloom, founder of the Cinepocalypse Film Festival in Chicago, reached out to Boulderlight Pictures’ JD Lifshitz with an intriguing proposition. Lifshitz’s mission, if he chose to accept it, was to bring a movie from conception to completion in one month’s time, culminating in a world premiere at the festival. Lifshitz accepted the dare and was given the title Dementia: Part II as a starting point.

Lifshitz immediately reached out to Mike Testin, the director of the original Dementia, to helm the project, and Testin brought in friend and collaborator Matt Mercer to act, co-write, and co-direct.

They hammered out a script in about a week, then wrangled a few more collaborators to serve as cast and crew, found a location, and got to work.

Things nearly fell apart at the last minute when the owner of the house they rented let them know that a crew would be jackhammering right outside, making recording audio impossible. Luckily, Testin was able to convince an old acquaintance to let them use his newly renovated house the night before principal photography was scheduled to begin.

The film was completed in the nick of time, with Mercer finalizing the sound mix just before getting on a plane to Chicago for the festival.

It was warmly received at Cinepocalypse, leading to more festival showings, including the prestigious Sitges Festival in Spain, and finally landing on VOD and streaming in 2021. Not a bad run for a movie that was made in a month.

As for Boulderlight, they’ve gone on to have a hand in producing well-received genre films like this year’s Companion, 2022’s Barbarian, and 2019’s The Vigil.

All that backstory wouldn’t be worth much if the final product turned out to be a stinker. Luckily, Dementia: Part II is a very fun watch, in the grand tradition of Zombi 2, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, and other sequels that have basically nothing to do with the original.

Shot in black and white, it’s more reminiscent of cheap and dirty grindhouse fare than the comparatively serious Dementia, which stars the great Gene Jones as a stroke patient being manipulated by his malevolent caregiver.

Mercer stars as Wendell, an ex-con trying to stay on the straight and narrow.

He gets a much-needed gig doing some handyman work for an elderly woman named Suzanne (Suzanne Voss).

At first, Suzanne seems a little confused, mistaking Wendell for her dead husband Harold, and forgetting why he’s there altogether. But Wendell sticks around, especially since she keeps tipping him with hundreds, thinking they’re tens. Wendell seems like a decent guy, but he’s not above taking advantage (at least a little) of this old lady.

Once she starts vomiting up blood and goo in the film’s second half, her eccentricities take on a more sinister dimension.

There’s an argument to be made that Dementia: Part II is in poor taste, making an old woman with a debilitating psychological condition into a figure of fear, but the movie’s just too darn goofy to take it at all seriously.

In interviews, Mercer and Testin have said that making the film was one of the most fun creative experiences of their lives, and that sense of scrappy, get-it-in-the-can ingenuity and play is infectious.

The actors all seem to be having a blast, particularly Voss, who makes Suzanne both unsettling and pitiable.

Another standout is indie stalwart Graham Skipper (recognizable from Joe Begos’ films like The Mind’s Eye, Bliss, and VFW) as Wendell’s cartoonishly awful parole officer.

The condensed production can’t help but rear its head somewhat, giving the film a lopsided narrative structure and a few elements that don’t really hang together.

It’s never better than in its early going when it’s basically a two-hander, as Wendell tries to navigate Suzanne’s mercurial world. Things get a little muddled in the second half, particularly once a young woman named Sheila (Najarra Townsend, star of Boulderlight’s previous film Contracted) shows up, claiming to be Suzanne’s daughter..  

Still, the can-do spirit and on-the-fly inventiveness, paired with its delightful backstory, make Dementia: Part II a worthy addition to your Tubi queue. 

At just over an hour long, it’s short enough to make a double feature with the first movie—just don’t expect them to have much to do with each other.