The Forgotten (1973 film)
| The Forgotten | |
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| Directed by | S. F. Brownrigg |
| Produced by | S. F. Brownrigg Walter L. Krusz (executive producer) |
| Written by | Tim Pope |
| Starring |
Bill McGhee Rosie Holotik Anne MacAdams Gene Ross Hugh Feagin Camilla Carr |
| Music by | Robert Farrar |
| Cinematography | Robert B. Alcott |
| Edited by | Jerry Caraway |
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Production
company |
Hallmark Releasing Corp.
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| Distributed by | AIP |
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Release date
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Running time
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89 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $100,000 USD |
The Forgotten (also known as Don't Look in the Basement and Death Ward #13) is a 1973 independent horror film directed by S. F. Brownrigg, written by Tim Pope and starring Bill McGhee, former Playboy model Rosie Holotik, and Anne MacAdams about homicidal patients at an insane asylum.
The film is set in Stephens Sanitarium, a secluded rural mental health institute whose chief doctor believes that the best way to deal with insanity is to allow the patients to freely act out their realities in the hopes that they will snap out of it, so to speak. The film begins with an elderly nurse in Stephens Sanitorium making her rounds. After a troubling incident in which a patient threatens her life, she decides to retire, and goes out to visit the chief doctor, Dr. Stephens, to inform him of the decision. Unfortunately, in the process of therapy (which involves chopping wood with an axe), the crazed former magistrate known as Judge (Gene Ross) accidentally lands the axe in Dr. Stephens' back, apparently killing him. The shaken nurse returns inside to finish packing, where she is attacked by Harriet (Camilla Carr), a patient who accuses her of stealing her "baby" (actually a plastic doll). The patient kills her by crushing her head in the nurse's suitcase.
The only remaining doctor appears to be Dr. Geraldine Masters (Anne MacAdams), who is greeted by Charlotte Beale (Rosie Holotik), a pretty young nurse who informs Dr. Masters that Dr. Stephens had hired her a week ago. Dr. Masters begrudgingly allows her to settle in. The young nurse meets the patients, including a lobotomized and childish man named Sam (Bill McGhee) who enjoys popsicles and his plastic toy boat, a nymphomaniac and schizophrenic named Allyson (Betty Chandler), an emotionally dependent woman named Jennifer (Harryette Warren), an octogenarian woman named Mrs. Callingham (Rhea MacAdams) who spouts bizarre poetry and mistakes flowers in the garden to be her own children, a juvenile prankster named Danny (Jessie Kirby), a shellshocked Sergeant (Hugh Feagin) who lost his mind after accidentally killing his men in Vietnam, and the crazed judge who seems incapable of speaking in anything other than courtroom jargon and the repeated phrase "My name... is... Oliver... W... Cameron..."
Dr. Masters becomes disturbed when a telephone man comes to investigate the faulty phone system at the institution. Mrs. Callingham's tongue is ripped out of her mouth during her sleep, although Dr. Masters tells Charlotte that Mrs. Callingham did it to herself. The audience later discovers that Dr. Masters is actually a patient at the institute, and that Dr. Stephens had allowed her to pretend to be a doctor. Dr. Masters burns the Sergeant's hand after he disobeys her, and murders Jennifer for stealing medicine. After a frantic conversation with Allyson, Charlotte discovers Dr. Masters' secret. Mrs. Callingham indicates to Charlotte that it was Masters who cut out her tongue, apparently to prevent the elderly woman from disclosing the secret. Charlotte then discovers the body of the telephone man in the kitchen closet, presumably murdered by Masters to make sure he would not report the institution's location to anyone on the outside. Allyson is distraught, as she thought the man was going to marry her, but she convinces herself that the man is still alive and drags his body to her room so she can have sex with it.
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