Inn of the Damned

It is getting a bit dated now and our view of films changes over time but the first time I ever saw this film I could NOT believe it had been made in Australia - I didn't think we were that good. I first saw it 30 years ago but still have a copy and am watching it again. There is more sex than I remembered - how odd - but there is some good acting and great scenery of paddocks shot around Camden. These are probably housing estates now.

I found the punch line quite moving and still do. The acting is good and quite professional. On the whole, it is still a scary movie without the use of cgi or special effects.

Read anything about "Inn of the Damned" and you'll doubtlessly come across a description of the way the movie was intended as a one-hour long episode of a TV series that was to begin with the director's earlier "Night of Fear". The TV show idea was scrapped when the ABC failed to pick it up, and so Bourke expanded his concept into an almost two hour long movie.

Read any REVIEW of the movie, however, and you'll read about the movie's strange, unsuccessful melding of two genres: the western and the horror movie.

What you WON'T read is what a fantastic short horror movie was buried in "Inn of the Damned"'s almost two hour length. It features the fulfilment of the promise Bourke showed in "Night of Fear", with some genuinely shocking, disturbing, and nail-biting moments.

Alas, these all come too late for those of us with short attention spans. The movie doesn't really try to mix the two genres; it starts as a tepid horror movie, has about an hour long preamble as a middling western, and then goes into full-on horror mode. The horror story could've been told in any time period.

The movie jolts us back into its REAL story with a strange subplot about two young women who stay at the titular inn who hate each other, but the older has sapphic feelings for the younger. Some would say that this is just more bizarre preamble before the movie gets going again, but I see it as a fantastic beginning of the superior and worth the price of admission, final act. It supplies us with nudity and lesbianism, yes, but also a macabre subplot that comes to an even more macabre end. And so the end begins in earnest.

I scoffed when I saw the "Hitchcockian" quote on the video cover. I was wrong. The master would have been proud of the movie's suspenseful, shocking and disturbing final moments. It's just too bad you have to wait so late in the movie to get there.

I really don't know what to think about this very strange western from the Aussie land. Very strange, very difficult to analyze, to have an opinion. But it's no crap, no, in any way, just an unpredictable and unusual feature, that's all. You have horror elements in this movie from the mid seventies; very daring for this period. It was not Robert Rodriguez's period yet and the Grindhouse mode was not sent to Australia either. But this film doesn't beyond to the Grindhouse, no. It's really something very weird, not for all audiences, for sure. Most of them will run away from it or stop after a couple of reels. No it's worth trying this movie.

'70s Ozsploitation movie Inn of the Damned combines the Western and horror genres and, in my opinion, does it very well.

The film stars Alex Cord as American bounty hunter Cal Kincaid, who teams up with Trooper Moore (Tony Bonner) to capture ruthless Australian criminal Biscayne (Robert Quilter); meanwhile, local innkeepers Caroline and Lazar Straulle (Judith Anderson and Joseph Fürst) -- old acquaintances of Biscayne -- subsidise their income by murdering their lodgers and stealing their belongings. When Trooper Moore goes to the inn to question the Straulles, he winds up becoming a victim of the homicidal old couple (who were driven insane when their children were killed by an escaped convict), leading Kincaid to stop eating peaches off a naked hooker and investigate his friend's disappearance instead.

The film begins primarily as a Western, with the two heroes tracking down their quarry through the scenic countryside, but segues into horror once Biscayne is brought to justice and Moore is murdered.

My favourite part of the film comes when a woman (Diana Dangerfield) and her pretty stepdaughter Beverly (Carla Hoogeveen) arrive at the inn during a storm. While their buggy driver Alfred (Phillip Avalon) is being brutally stabbed to death by Lazar, the women are stripping off to share a bed and to take a bath together. We then learn that the stepmother is a predatory lesbian who has been abusing Beverly, which is totally superfluous to the plot, since both women are bumped off soon after, but that's why it's so great -- it's pure exploitation!

Kincaid opting to spend a night in the inn to try and find out what happened to Moore ramps up the suspense, leading to a tense showdown between the bounty hunter and the elderly psychos. The film does tend to outstay its welcome once the killers have been caught, and the revelation about what is hidden in their secret room is quite disappointing (not nearly as twisted as I had hoped), but on the whole this is a very entertaining film.

7.5/10, rounded up to 8 for the Straulle's unique method of killing their victims.

Oh my goodness gracious, this one sets the standard for the worst movies of all time. I haven't seen many of those on the worst 500 list but how this turkey didn't make it is anyone's guess. Dumbest food/sex scene in history. Cliched slomo shots - hey this baby's got it all!