Barn of the Naked Dead
Year: 1973
Director: Alan Rudolph
Written by: Alan Rudolph, Roman Valenti
Threat: Psychopath
Weapon of Choice: Whip
Based upon: nothing
IMDb page: 
Barn of the Naked DeadYear: 1973 Director: Alan Rudolph Written by: Alan Rudolph, Roman Valenti Threat: Psychopath Weapon of Choice: Whip Based upon: nothing IMDb page: |
|
Other movies in this series:
None
Rish Outfield's reviews
When three young women have their car break down in the Nevada desert, they are
happy to be discovered by Andre, the friendly, insane local. However, when he takes
them back to his homestead and incorporates them into his menagerie, they're not quite
as thrilled. Things get worse when the whip comes out, but there are two beacons of
hope: their agent is concerned enough to come looking for them, and one of the girls
bears a striking resemblance to Andre's long-lost mother. Oh, but I forgot to mention
the cougar or the murderous, mutated freak. Whoops.
With a title like Barn of the Naked Dead, you pretty much know what you're
getting into. I guess the original title was Nightmare Circus, which is a better,
if less-exploitative title.
I saw this in a double bill with The Gates of
Hell at the same revival theater I've told you about before. The theater was
slightly funkier-smelling than before (what IS that?), but the dregs of society were the
same as last time. Supposedly, they get together every month or so to watch sick
stuff like this. And apparently, I am one of them.
Welcome to Seventies exploitation at its cheapest, folks. The film was made on an
ultra low-budget, and was occasionally very dull because of it. Surprisingly though,
there were also occasional moments of competence. The story, while sparce and
stretched to kill time, wasn't a bad one. Some of the girls were quite pretty, and the
acting was fairly convincing, which helped make my skin crawl. Andrew Prine, one
of the cast members of the great miniseries V
and its sequel, is actually quite good as the demented Andre, who keeps women
chained in his barn, thinking them and treating them as animals.
Hey, look! A mutant!
I thought about the Me character (I'll usually find somebody I relate to in every movie),
and wasn't sure if it was Derek, the unattractive, out-of-shape agent, or Andre, the
handsome, but murderously psychotic man-boy. Hmmm.
Parts of the film were hard to watch, especially the violence against women. They
had been utterly dehumanized, and that made me very uncomfortable. Surprisingly,
all of the main characters die. It was unpleasant, and similar to flicks like
Midnight, Mother's
Day, and The Texas
Chainsaw Massacre, only a little brighter (and sillier) than those (after all,
Andre does think he's a ringmaster).
It did get pretty dull, and the audience laughed a few times when it was clearly not
intended. There was about twenty-five minutes worth of story here, which seems to
be the rule rather than the exception in these shoestring productions. Still, I've seen
worse. Wow, what have I become?
Total Skulls: 18
| Sequel | ||
| Sequel setup |  |
|
| Rips off earlier film | ||
| Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie | ||
| Future celebrity appears | ||
| Former celebrity appears | ||
| Bad title | |
|
| Bad premise | ||
| Bad acting | ||
| Bad dialogue | |
|
| Bad execution | |
|
| MTV Editing | ||
| OTS | |
|
| Girl unnecessarily gets naked | ||
| Wanton sex | ||
| Death associated with sex | ||
| Unfulfilled promise of nudity | ||
| Characters forget about threat | |
|
| Secluded location | |
|
| Power is cut | ||
| Phone lines are cut | ||
| Someone investigates a strange noise | ||
| Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door | ||
| Camera is the killer | |
|
| Victims cower in front of a window/door | ||
| Victim locks self in with killer | ||
| Victim running from killer inexplicably falls | |
|
| Toilet stall scene | ||
| Shower/bath scene | ||
| Car stalls or won't start | |
|
| Cat jumps out | ||
| Fake scare | ||
| Laughable scare | ||
| Stupid discovery of corpse | |
|
| Dream sequence | ||
| Hallucination/Vision | ||
| No one believes only witness | ||
| Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth | |
|
| Warning goes unheeded | |
|
| Music detracts from scene | ||
| Death in first five minutes | ||
| x years before/later | ||
| Flashback sequence | ||
| Dark and stormy night | ||
| Killer doesn't stay dead | ||
| Killer wears a mask | ||
| Killer is in closet | ||
| Killer is in car with victim | ||
| Villain is more sympathetic than heroes | ||
| Unscary villain/monster | ||
| Beheading | |
|
| Blood fountain | ||
| Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc. | ||
| Poor death effect | |
|
| Excessive gore | ||
| No one dies at all | ||
| Virgin survives | ||
| Geek/Nerd survives | ||
| Little kid lamely survives | ||
| Dog/Pet miraculously survives | ||
| Unresolved subplots | ||
| "It was all a dream" ending | ||
| Unbelievably happy ending | ||
| Unbelievably crappy ending | ||
| What the hell? |