Matrixston Wow! Such a good movie.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Red-Barracuda Despite its reception, which seems to have been quite negative from what I have read, Ruby made an absolutely huge profit at the box office. Made for $600,000 it went on to rake in $16million. That's serious commercial success for sure. But it appears to have been one of those movies which made big waves on initial release but then kind of fell off the radar immediately afterwards. In 1935 a man is gunned down by his fellow gangsters. Sixteen years later his wife, now the mother to a disturbing mute girl, runs a drive-in theatre that specialises in horror movies. She employs all the men responsible for the earlier murder and soon they all start winding up dead, victims of a mysterious supernatural entity. It soon transpires that the young daughter is possessed by her dead father's spirit and he's out for some serious pay-back.This one was directed by Curtis Harrington who was responsible for the subtle off-kilter chiller Night Tide (1961) which featured a young Dennis Hopper in an unusually restrained role. Ruby is a decidedly more standard horror offering combining elements of a trio of big-hitting horror hits of the day including Carrie (1976) with Piper Laurie as a demented mother, The Exorcist (1973) with the spider-walking possessed young girl and The Omen (1976) with its series of elaborate death scenes - victims are impaled high up on cinema screens, choked to death on film reels, hung from trees and left bloodied in...a Coke machine. It's a combination that basically works though, with enough incidents occurring to ensure it's never a boring watch. I think its possession movie element is the one that works best though, with Janit Baldwin perfectly cast in the role of the demented daughter. With her saucer eyes and creepy smile she is genuinely unsettling and the scenes with her possessed by her father are actually kind of scary. Perhaps if the various death scenes had been executed with a little more verve and detail, the film would be better but the weird killings still do add a further macabre detail to the overall whole never-the-less. The drive-in setting is actually a pretty good one and gives the film a bit of distinct character and I did enjoy the interspersing of the featured film Attack of the 50 Foot Woman into things even if it was a movie released seven years after events depicted on screen were supposed to be happening - ah, the trifling details film-makers could so easily get away with in the days before the internet! Anyway, events do dovetail to an ending which was a little odd. I don't think the general idea of it was especially bad – quite decent in actual fact – but it was just far, far too abrupt. All-in-all though, this forgotten box-office smash is actually well worth seeking out if you like 70's horror movies, it's a little ropey in places for sure but it does have a bit of atmosphere, originality and legitimately scary moments.

MARIO GAUCI The title of this film and Piper Laurie's presence clearly derive from CARRIE (1976) – though I was misled into thinking that Ruby was the possessed child rather than the mother. While I'm not sure the EXORCIST trappings were really necessary, these actually extend to only a couple of scenes…and one has to understand that the notorious 'spider walk' from the 1973 classic – depicted here (but more on this later) – wasn't officially a part of the film until its 2000 re-edit! Incidentally, the irate-father-speaking/murdering-through-his-child angle was also seen in Mario Bava's contemporaneous SHOCK (1977).RUBY, therefore, is silly but quite effective scene-by-scene and, anyway, it certainly provides a unique mixture of supernatural horror with the typical gangland milieu. The drive-in theater element (showing ATTACK OF THE 50-FOOT WOMAN [1958] years before it was actually made; the story is ostensibly set in 1951!), then, renders the proceedings even trashier (especially with the participation of a sluttish habitué) – while, at the same time, serving as a comment on the genre itself.The swamp (and period) setting supply the requisite atmosphere: Laurie's bitter but still-attractive torch singer/aspiring film-star/gangster's moll dominates her associates (the very same gang that killed her lover at the start of the picture!) but obviously clings to the past – linking the film to Harrington's earlier horror outing WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HELEN? (1971). The odd-looking Janit Baldwin is perfectly cast as the mediumistic girl, especially creepy when the dead gangster – through her – confronts Laurie with his suspicions that the latter set him up. Stuart Whitman is a likable ageing hero, and Roger Davis rises to the occasion as a paranormal expert.Unfortunately, the special effects and gore are cheaply done and the ending (different from Harrington's original conception) somewhat abrupt; though the version on the VCI DVD I purchased is credited as being the "Director's Cut", it's still missing some footage…but, at least, is free of other additions requested by the producers (reportedly the work of Stephanie Rothman) for the film's Network TV showings.The disc includes an hour-long career overview with director Harrington and film critic David Del Valle, which is extremely interesting: it touches upon some of the films I watched in tribute to his recent passing, but also a number of others (including the TV stuff) which are still very rare to come by. Besides, he fondly reminisces about his encounters with several film legends such as Alfred Hitchcock, Josef von Sternberg, Orson Welles and James Whale (let's not forget that Harrington is the man responsible for saving the latter's delightful THE OLD DARK HOUSE [1932] from oblivion) – all of whom, incidentally, are among my own personal favorites!The Audio Commentary is similar to the one for Harrington's NIGHT TIDE in that, apart from denoting locations where specific scenes were shot (which would mean very little to a foreigner like myself!), the director seems to be fuzzy on many production details. However, what he didn't forget – or forgive, for that matter – is his strained relationship with the film's executive producer, Steve Krantz (whom Harrington even describes as "evil"): he never misses an opportunity to put him down – berating Krantz for his stinginess, for imposing a mediocre cameraman on him and, needless to say, for ruining his 'poetic' ending! The director also remarks about the remarkable longevity of horror classics vis-a'-vis mainstream productions from Hollywood's Golden Age, and recalls the Karloff/Lugosi vehicle THE RAVEN (1935) as having been his introduction to the genre. Incidentally, the RUBY Commentary is a lot more animated than that of NIGHT TIDE – thanks to the enthusiastic contribution of star Piper Laurie, even if she's critical of her own performance at this juncture (and blames the tight schedule for it). As for the 'spider walk', it emerges that this eerie contortionist effect wasn't borrowed from THE EXORCIST at all – but rather from a Salvador Dali painting about a psycho-physiological condition known as the Hysterical Arch!

preppy-3 Horror movie with a needlessly convoluted plot. In 1935 a gangster's girlfriend named Ruby (Piper Laurie) sees her boyfriend shot down dead. At that moment she gives birth to his baby (!!!) The movie cuts to 16 years later. Ruby is an alcoholic running a drive in and Leslie is her daughter--born a deaf mute (I think). For reasons never made totally clear she has the guys who shot her boyfriend dead working for her in the drive in! Then they start getting killed--it seems Ruby's ex is coming back for revenge...If that synopsis sounds confusing you should see the movie! Curtis Harrington is a good director and I'm giving this a 4 just because it is well-directed...it just doesn't make a lot of sense. I saw the director's cut which was thought to be lost. Harrington was fired before the movie was finished. The producer took the movie, cut out all the violence and shot scenes with a totally different cast! That was the one released. Harrington complained about it and said his version was gone. Somehow it was found and that's the one I saw. If this is the cut the director approved I can only wonder how bad the reedited version was! Scenes seem to end before they're finished; the plot meanders all over the place; there are way too many unanswered questions still lingering at the end; Ruby is inexplicably always dressed like a madam; the special effects are poor; the deaths are very poorly done (and look REAL fake); the twist at the end comes out of nowhere--and doesn't make a lot of sense and, basically, this is BORING!Laurie is a wonderful actress but she's terrible in this. She appears to be drunk most of the time--or looks like she wishes she were. Stuart Whitman walks through his role. Janit Baldwin is actually pretty good as Leslie. And Roger Davis (fondly remembered from "Dark Shadows") pops up about 30 minutes in as a parapsychologist. He has little to do with the plot except have Whitman provide some clumsy exposition to him. It's supposed to clear up the plot--it doesn't.A dull, confusing mess. Not worth seeing at all. It's really a shame-the VCI DVD looks just beautiful.

ruffrider I saw this one in the theater when it first came out and any film with Piper Laurie and Stuart Whitman holds promise for me. The dead-gangster-coming-back-to-avenge-his-murder premise could have worked, but the cheesy, B-movie script, the direction and several unfortunate sequences drag it down. Laurie and Whitman give the film its best moments but the rest of the cast is less than stellar and the minute Ruby's mute daughter starts "talking" in the dead gangster's voice we know this picture is in trouble. The low point comes when the hapless daughter is forced to do a ridiculous and incompetent take-off on Linda Blair's levitating and similar antics from "The Exorcist" - what can I say? I love good horror shows and hoped this would be one of them. There are chilling moments at the beginning and the very end, but the campy script and amateur supporting players sink this effort - too bad.