A shot in ten day film - in a falling to pieces old house that was also a home for recovering drug addicts and alcoholics and was also the setting for Haunting Fear, Spirits, Mind Twister and Witch Academy- this was directed by Gary Graver and written by Mikel Angel, who played Snake in The Black Six and also wrote Lady Cocoa, Psychic Killer, Grotesque and The Candy Tangerine Man. He's also Willie in this.
It's based on the real-life story of Dorthea Puente, a woman who ran a boarding house in Sacramento, CA when she wasn't killing nine of her residents. In this film, Puente is Ella Purdy and she's played by Karen Black, who I seemingly spend days in a row obsessing about as I watch her in direct to video and made for TV movies.
Ella speaks to her dead husband more than most people speak with their living spouses. She's also taking social security checks in exchange for rent and when her boarders die - or get killed - she makes it seem as if they are still alive so she can keep the money rolling in.
A government agent named Potts (Arte Johnson in a role meant for Buck Henry) starts to see through her plan and wonders why these senior citizens are never seen in person. Those elders are made up of some pretty great actors: Martine Beswick as the medium Vanya, Virginia Mayo and Bert Remsen as society types the Wilsons , Deborah Lamb as Ella's mute and always dancing daughter Tina, Michael Berryman as a writer who goes by Balzac and Angel as the drunken Wille. Even Hoke Howell, Robert Quarry and Yvette Vickers, who was the town tramp - I say that in the nicest of ways - in Attack of the 50 Foot Woman and whose July 1959 Playboy Playmate of the Month centerfold was shot by Russ Meyer, show up.
Thanks to the incredible Schlock Pit, I learned that it was produced by Sidney Niekerk, who owned the adult video company Cal Vista.
This starts like a haunted house movie, has plenty of Psycho in it and then has a twist ending that I never saw coming. That's success on a very low budget, something Graver always seemed able to perform admirably.
It's based on the real-life story of Dorthea Puente, a woman who ran a boarding house in Sacramento, CA when she wasn't killing nine of her residents. In this film, Puente is Ella Purdy and she's played by Karen Black, who I seemingly spend days in a row obsessing about as I watch her in direct to video and made for TV movies.
Ella speaks to her dead husband more than most people speak with their living spouses. She's also taking social security checks in exchange for rent and when her boarders die - or get killed - she makes it seem as if they are still alive so she can keep the money rolling in.
A government agent named Potts (Arte Johnson in a role meant for Buck Henry) starts to see through her plan and wonders why these senior citizens are never seen in person. Those elders are made up of some pretty great actors: Martine Beswick as the medium Vanya, Virginia Mayo and Bert Remsen as society types the Wilsons , Deborah Lamb as Ella's mute and always dancing daughter Tina, Michael Berryman as a writer who goes by Balzac and Angel as the drunken Wille. Even Hoke Howell, Robert Quarry and Yvette Vickers, who was the town tramp - I say that in the nicest of ways - in Attack of the 50 Foot Woman and whose July 1959 Playboy Playmate of the Month centerfold was shot by Russ Meyer, show up.
Thanks to the incredible Schlock Pit, I learned that it was produced by Sidney Niekerk, who owned the adult video company Cal Vista.
This starts like a haunted house movie, has plenty of Psycho in it and then has a twist ending that I never saw coming. That's success on a very low budget, something Graver always seemed able to perform admirably.