User reviews

Rich kid Albert (Zooey Hall) is in an institute. We meet him at the beginning of the film trying to rape a nurse before he is apprehended. His doctor tells his mother that he is a lost cause and must be moved to a hospital for the insane. While being taunted by one of the male nurses there, Albert tricks him into watching one of the 'films' he's made, and ends up killing him and escaping. He arrives at his mother's house to kill her - he sees her as a whore who is not 'pure' enough. He instead comes across her housekeeper, who he taunts and kills. Yet when he meets her 11 year-old daughter Annie (Geri Reischi), they form a bond and Albert takes her away. For once he has met a girl who is pure and innocent, but the only problem are his violent sexual urges.

The original name for this film was Poor Albert and Little Annie, which is a much more apt title for a film that is relatively unexploitative and character-driven. While they are scenes of violence, they are brief and contain very little blood or gore. The film concentrates more on the relationship between Albert and Annie, and the creepy fascination Albert has with her. Albert is clearly a misogynist, viewing every woman as filth who have lost their purity. Annie is sweet and innocent, and so Albert begins a strange love affair with her. He understands his urges are wrong, but he goes with it all the same.

As interesting as I'm making the film out to be, you have to remember that this is a 70's grindhouse film marketed under the name of I Dismember Mama and was usually shown in a double bill with The Blood Spattered Bride (1972). This generally means that although the idea is certainly quite interesting, the execution is bad. Whereas the low- budget works in it's favour - the film has a grime to it that creates a feeling of sleaze - the film is peppered with long sections where nothing at all happens. The 80 minute running time feels much longer than it actually is, and although Hall in the lead is generally quite effective as the rich-boy psychopath, he cannot save the film from being a meandering missed opportunity.

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It seems like I Dismember Mama as become the standard release title for this one, originally Poor Albert and Little Annie. It really shouldn't have been renamed, as no one gets dismembered and there isn't even any gore (unless you count a split second stabbing), so anyone who hit this one at a drive in or grabbed a VHS copy expecting gruesome goods would have been severely disappointed. The original name is pretty suitable though, there's an Albert and an Annie, and the Annie is little. I wouldn't call Albert poor though, he seemed like a pretty run of the mill ass hole psycho to me. Still, the title suggests strange drama and strange drama makes up a considerable portion of the film, so it works. The titular Albert is a misogynist mama's boy creep who got institutionalised for attempting to off said mama, but breaks out in order to finish the deed. Along the way he befriends the young daughter of his mothers maid and they have a happy day out. Which is where things get weird and the film scotches its previously decent efforts at being a grimy little exploiter. The first third is pretty promising, attempted rape and strangulation, hateful and arrogant chatter and then a rather disconcerting episode of naked torment followed by murder. But when Albert meets Annie it all shifts, there's some suspense but only in vague currents through overall dullness, their dynamic is somewhat interesting and ambiguous but young Gerri Reischl is a tedious cute young girl and events are utterly prosaic and cheesy. Zooey Hall is decent as Albert though, aloof and malign with a definite sense of threat to him, he carries things as best he can but its difficult when substantial portions of the film are so uneventful, only perking up for a fairly intense closing ten minutes or so. Mostly the score is more exitable than the film, tense strings, saccharine romance and a fair amount of brash and brassy jazz moments, its good fun to boogie along to even when not much interesting is happening. The direction is stolid and other performances tend to be quite weak, but there's enough low key unease for things to be just about passable, and an interesting palpable air of misogyny. Not only is good time given over to Alberts unpleasant blather the portrayal of women in the film does little to contradict him, I'm sure the effect wasn't especially intentional but its notable nonetheless and gives the film a creepier feel than it might otherwise. Altogether this won't do much for anyone other than the more thoroughoing of early 70's trash enthusiasts but if you're the kind of person that just has to see it, its worthy enough. 5/10.

In this film, Albert is a rich psycho, who goes around looking for sex, then killing the woman if they are not virgins.When he sees little 11 year old Annie, he falls in love.But,since he doesn't want to ruin her purity, he finds another woman, and Annie catches them,starting the finale.

This is a rare film to find=majority of video stores don't have it...But, its really crazy and unrelated, worth a look!

"Poor Albert and Little Annie," alternatively titled "Crazed" and, better yet, "I Dismember Mama," is a collage of misappropriations from probably better and certainly more respected sources. The title recalls the play-turned-film "I Remember Mama" (1946), the protagonist Albert mentions a Vincent Van Gogh painting ("Le Café de Nuit") in one scene also set amid billiards at a bar, and the climax set in a warehouse of mannequins is ripped off from Stanley Kubrick's "Killer's Kiss" (1955). More fundamentally, the entire production follows in the long tradition of Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" (1960), with the insane murderer who kills out of a conflation of his obsession with his mother and misogyny for the promiscuous women he desires. The other landmark horror film of 1960, Michael Powell's "Peeping Tom" is co-opted, too, early on, for the metaphor of movie-as-monster, with the madman attacking nurses at the asylum who get in the way of his viewing presumably pornographic or snuff pictures. The "Peeping Tom" similarities are dropped as soon as Albert escapes his captivity, but, besides an extended variation on the scene from "Frankenstein" (1931) between the creature and Maria, is substituted by what may be interpreted as allusions to Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland," which is the reason I came to this.

The only one I know of to point out this connection is fellow IMDb reviewer Tedg (Ted Goranson), who also amusingly takes note that the girl playing Annie here (Geri Reischl) subsequently played Jan in "The Brady Bunch" TV show, which also featured a maid named "Alice." Nominally, the Alice in this movie is Annie's mother, as well as the maid for Albert's mother's home, but characteristic of the picture's practice of misplacement, or dismemberment, it's Annie herself who displays the appearance and some of the characteristics of Carroll's Alice. Her and Albert even enjoy a boat ride and a detour on a children's train that, as Goranson also mentions, are reminiscent of episodes from the Alice books.

The rest of "I Dismember Mama" is a slipshod production that possibly may only be appreciated as a so-bad-it's-good film. Besides Zooey Hall, as Albert, who's affected manner of speech is effectively creepy, the acting is poor. The bumbling bobbies are clichés, including the cop repeatedly munching on junk food and sipping coffee in phone booths. The pacing tends to be bad, although the montage of Albert and Annie in the boat cut with flashbacks of his slaying Alice is an exception.

Irrespective of the deficiencies in the rest of the picture, however, reading references to "Alice in Wonderland" into "I Dismember Mama" is a disturbing exercise. I don't put much stock in the claims of pedophilia against Charles Dodgson, but that notion is in some ways more effectively exploited here for pure horror than by Dennis Potter's peculiar sense of literary honor in "Dreamchild" (1985) and, earlier, the TV movie "Alice" (1965). In the late 20th century, Dodgson's Victorian-era photography has been argued to sexualize their children subjects, and in this film, we see the same sort of nude pictures in the background at the mannequin warehouse, as Albert chases after Annie. His perverse interest in her pre-pubescence and virginity is further underscored in a scene where he waxes poetic re the purity of women in the Victorian era. The inference, then, is if Annie is the movie's Alice, Albert is its Dodgson.

After he escapes from a mental hospital,deranged Zooey Hall sets out to kill his mother(who sent him there),but along the way attacks and kills any "loose women" that cross his path.Eventually,he falls for a young girl,the daughter of his mother's housekeeper."I Dismember Mama" is an extremely boring and ugly thriller.I actually suffered watching this one and that's saying something.Exploitation and horror fans will be disappointed,because there is absolutely no gore.There is a little bit of sleaze and perversion(for example photos of naked children in the warehouse filled with mannequins),and the denouement is almost intense,unfortunately "I Dismember Mama" is too dull to be enjoyable.Watching paint dry is far more interesting than suffering through this turd.5 out of 10 and that's being kind.

Albert (the deliciously named Zooey Hall, previously seen on ABC's "The New People") escapes from an insane asylum and heads home to kill his mother. See, Albert is a believer that - as The Cramps would say - all women are baddddd! He arrives only to find that she is not home. Naturally, he takes the time to kill the maid right before the maid's daughter Annie shows up. Enchanted by the 10-year-old, Albert takes Annie away in the hopes of marrying her and keeping her pure. Not much can be gained from this sleazy little flick outside of its classic retitling and some gawking at the 70s aesthetics. The film does have some creepy elements (Albert's fixation on this young girl), but director Paul Leder (A*P*E) isn't about to explore them any deeper than face value. There are some nice moments, however, delivered in the film's final minutes in a darkened mannequin factory.

This is more like a look into a perverted misogynist's head. It was creepy to me as a woman, especially since numerous films like this exist (Night After Night After Night, Terror on Tour, Pieces, Shadows Run Black and many many others). Too many films are about psychopaths obsessed with women's "purity" it makes you wonder. Why do people care so much? And why is it constantly shown in movies that virgins are better women? Why do non-virgins deserve to die? What goes on in the minds of writers of this main theme? The acting was decent. The story was awful.

Anyway, this movie creeped me out. Maybe it seemed too real. I hated it.

1/10

The "Poor Albert" montage alone is worth the price of admission. The relationship between Albert and Alice is bittersweet, and I found myself wanting them to end up together for some reason. The guy just killed her mother and I totally forgot about it! Zooey Hall is a real find and that little girl is so adorable. And I totally love Albert's wardrobe. He's like a psycho dressed in pimp's clothing. And that hat? Oh, my God, I just love that hat, it's just so...

The film's cheesy too, by the way. And it has the tendency to get boring in spots. It also has the tendency to be stupid too. And not all the acting is as good as Zooey's. But why carp, it's great!

Such a marvelous film. I particularly loved the title song, sung by Rocket Roden. When Roden sings, people listen. I am enthralled by this masterpiece. This is all I have to say. Now, leave me alone.

What a shame that the distributors billed this fascinating Grindhouse classic as a splatter film; "I Dismember Mama" is not the original title of this obscure gem, and it is a misleading title as well, as nobody gets 'dismembered.' This is the story of a paranoid schizophrenic, who has been committed to a private asylum. Albert is convinced that all women are whores, and that the world must be cleansed of the evil that they bring. After sexually attacking a nurse and cutting the throat of an orderly, Albert escapes and returns to his childhood home, in search of his mother, who is his main obsession. He doesn't find her. He does find the 12 year old daughter of his mother's friend, and becomes convinced that little Annie should become his bride, as she is the only truly "pure" female left in the world.

This movie is something that could have only been made in the glorious 1970's, cinema's most notorious decade for rule breaking and boundary pushing themes and images. "I Dismember Mama" aka "Poor Albert and Little Annie" is a must for fans of the "grindhouse" films of the 70's. It has it all; extreme fashions and hairstyles, bizarre music, and a truly twisted story. The seedy, low budget production is rich with atmosphere, and a feeling of dread permeates the film from beginning to end. The subject matter is sure to make certain viewers a bit uncomfortable, but then so do many of the best movies. Sadly it is very difficult to find a watchable copy of this movie, but it is worth tracking down. I'm kind of surprised that it doesn't have more of a cult following. Recommended; along the lines of "The Baby" and "Toys Are Not for Children," other films about bizarre sexual deviations.

"Poor" Albert? Poor as in "unfortunate and pitiable person"? Well, I don't know who came up with that title (and complementary theme song), but "poor" is the absolute last adjective I would use to describe the protagonist of this obscure and twisted early 70s exploitation feature. I suggest abhorrent Albert, sick Albert, pervert Albert, or pedo-Albert! We're talking about a guy who genuinely believes that all women are inferior and impure creatures that do not deserve to live and breath the same air he does. Albert attacks and rapes nurses in the mental institution where he lives, makes it his life's mission to murder his mother, and kills the most gentle and utmost innocent female housekeeper I have ever seen. And then he also falls in love with an 11-year-old girl and symbolically marries her for her immaculateness. So, poor ... didn't think so!

Whilst we're challenging adjectives, let's change and some more! Annie may be little, but she's also extremely naïve. Even in the early 70s, I sincerely hope that parents educated their children not to blindly follow strange men they only know from a picture. Housekeeper Alice is the poor one. She's a genuinely kind-hearted and respectable woman who doesn't deserve to die at the hand of a misogynist. Mother Robertson, who barely has any screentime, is a repulsive person because she refuses to acknowledge that her offspring is a freak and never warned Alice and Annie about his true nature. Doctor Burton's medical license should be confiscated because the treatment given at his institute is totally ineffective, and he even obstructs police work. And, finally, the police detective and his troops are too dumb for words. How can you fail to put a stakeout at the house of the mother whom the escaped lunatic threatened to murder? The police are responsible for the death of poor Alice.

Despite all the flaws and shortcomings, "Poor Albert and Little Annie" is a worthwhile and compelling 70s exploitation movie; - especially for the fans of this uniquely twisted horror sub-genre. There are shocks, controversial themes, and over-the-top eccentric characters aplenty. Since Albert is capable of anything, you genuinely fear for little Annie's life, and therefore the film is reasonably tense and unpredictable. Director Paul Leder also made the disturbing post-Vietnam shocker "My Friends Need Killing", so he definitely knows a thing or two about grim exploitation.

Don't let the clever I DISMEMBER MAMA title lead you to believe that this is going to be a bull's-eye grindhouse classic. Simply stated, this is a strictly par B thriller full of hand-me-down ideas, possibly a notch higher on the sicko-meter for presenting a psychotic antagonist unwholesomely obsessed with a little girl. Beyond that, a faceless dime-a-dozen vehicle with the usual kook harboring the usual resentment of females, and the usual unlucky lasses who become his victims.

It's a visually unappealing affair, with better performances from its principal cast than the base material really deserves, and a few scenes are admittedly set up fairly well. In the bigger picture, however, this is just an unimaginatively assembled exposition of something we've all seen a thousand times before, and done a thousand times better.

4/10...passable, but you'll certainly live to tell about how you didn't bother to see it.

The alternative title of this film would make much better sense. Through some extremely unrelated footage, it does very good at hiding the truth of our "Poor Albert" who killed "Little Annie's" mama. That way, we can slowly await the climax. Horror and gore fans, be warned! You will be disappointed by the lack of severed body parts and / or any detailed scenes of graphic violence, and just because it's titled I DISMEMBER MAMA! Don't blame me if I said this! I watched this film from an out-of-print Simitar version that might have been cut from any over-the-top gore. So what? A good little El Cheapola drive-in thriller, but try not to get too high on your expectations.

Ignore the disparaging comments and relatively low score here on IMDb: I Dismember Mama is worth seeing for Zooey Hall's chilling performance as deeply disturbed Albert Robertson, whose deranged actions easily qualify him as one of grind-house cinema's more memorable maniacs. Albert, who looks like a cross between Christian Bale and Derek Zoolander, kicks things off by attacking a female nurse at the institution he has been sent to (after trying to kill his wealthy mother, played by Joanne Moore Jordan). The psycho grabs the nurse, tears open her top, smacks her about a bit, and tries to strangle her with his jacket, but is stopped when a pair of male orderlies enter the room. This brutal assault convinces Dr. Burton (Frank Whiteman) that Albert belongs in a high security hospital, but before the looney can be transferred, he makes his escape (after slashing the throat of an attendant). Having found the dead orderly, the police take Mrs. Robertson to a safe place, but fail to stake out his mother's house, or ensure that housekeeper Alice (Marlene Tracy) is made aware of the situation. So when Albert inevitably arrives home, he is greeted by Alice, who unknowingly triggers Albert's hatred of impure women by revealing that she has an 11-year-old daughter, Annie (Geri Reischl ): to punish her, Albert forces Alice to strip at knifepoint and then kills her. Soon after, Annie arrives home from school, and, unaware that her Albert is a murderous pervert, believes him when he says that her mother has gone to the doctors and that he is to look after the girl. And this is where things start to get REALLY twisted: Albert falls in love with Annie, since she is his idea of absolute purity. He takes her out for the day, plays games with her (including pretending to marry her), and pays for a swanky hotel room for the night. Having tucked her up in bed, he fights his unnatural urges to crawl under the covers with the girl, and so goes out and picks up a pool-hall floozy instead, who he takes to the hotel and strangles - just as Annie wakes up! A tense finale has poor Albert chasing little Annie into a mannequin factory, where he decides that she is just like other women and deserves to die like her mommy. With its perverse themes and Hall's convincingly psychotic turn, I found I Dismember Mama to be quite the sleazy treat: not overly explicit, but grimy and unashamedly tawdry, just the way I like my '70s exploitation. Even when the film is focussing on Albert and Annie's fun day out (a breezy montage complete with theme song), the pair boating and riding on trams, there's an deeply unsettling atmosphere, creepy Albert getting a little too touchy feely with the girl whose mother he has butchered hours earlier. Judging by I Dismember Mama's current IMDb rating of 4.2/10, a lot of people were probably disappointed by the fact that the film wasn't a straightforward gory slasher, but my fellow IMDb reviewers Woodyanders and Falconeer know where it's at, giving the film the very reasonable 7/10 rating it deserves.

My review was written in March 1983 after a Greenwich Village screening.

A modest B-film lensed as "Poor Albert and Little Annie" in 1972, this ineffectual psycho-on-the-loose picture enjoys an enduring notoriety by virtue of its title change to "I Dismember Mama". Though the material is suitably distasteful and morbid, meek presentation will disappoint gorehounds lured by that title.

Quite impressive as the outwardly cool but deranged killer, Zooey Hall escapes form a sanitorium after the authorities prohibit him from watching stag movies in his room. Beginning a string of killings with a bald orderly, he's out to punish his rich mother (Joanne Mooe Jordan) whom he blames for having sent him there and cut off from the family's $30,000,000 nest egg.

Arriving at the family mansion, Hall terrorizes and kills the busty redhead housekeeper (Marlene Tracy). When her pre-teen daughter Annie (Geri Reischl) returns home from school, the film segues into a U. S. version of the French classic "Sundays and Cybele", as romantic music, lyrical montages and a generally pleasant mood accompany Hall and Reiscl's idyll together. At night, his warped sexual urges surface, but resisting the impulse, Hall sublimates by going out and picking up an adult blonde woman at an L. A. pool hall.

Besides the absence of gore, film relies upon unbelievable police procedure to keep its narrative going, and script is fatally flawed by the absence of a confrontation between Hall and his mom. (In fact, they have no footage together.) Among the more familiar cast members, Greg Mullavey (of tv's "Mary Hartman") is miscast as the incompetent detective on the case.

Low-budget filming is poorly lit (multiple shadows abound( and lacking in action until the derivative chase through a warehouse of mannikins finale. Punchy big band score by Herschel Burke Gilbert is a plus.

Director Paul Leder went on to film the 3-D opus "Ape", and more recently "I'm Going to Be Famous" with Mullavey in the latter. Scriptwriter William Norton would appear to be the same one who worked on a dozen Levy-Gardner-Laven productions such as "Sam Whiskey" and "Gator", distinct from the B. W. L. Norton (of "Cisco Pike", "More American Graffiti"), but confusing credits over the past decade still need to be sorted out (e.g., Bill Norton Senior of "Night of the Juggler" and William Norton Senior of "Dirty Tricks").

David "Zooey" Hall who was good in FORTUNE AND MEN'S EYES is casted as a nut who kills a little girls mother, and tries be friends with her in another 70's low grade thriller. Paul Leder made a sequel 16 years later as KILLING OBSESSION with John saxon and John Savage playing Hall's part. I think Savage is a good actor, but Hall really made this part in the first one. The film really isn't a cult classic, but seems to became one because of the constant re-pressing Video Gems and Simtar did on the video cassette release, and the film F/X mentioned this film also. Not recommended.

Original title belies what is really a bad movie. Hall plays a strange psycho who hates all women who are not virgins. Then he meets a innocent 11 year old. They take a extended trip to a amusement park. We see a long series of montages of them playing on the rides. Complete with a syrupy song titled "Poor Albert". (And you thought this was supposed to be a horror movie). The climax takes place in a abandoned warehouse full of mannequins, which the director does not take advantage of. A truly pathetic excuse for filmmaking. No scares, no suspense, no creativity; just Zooey Hall trying desperately to act. The worst film I've seen and I have seen a lot.

Albert (Zooey Hall) has some serious issues. He believes that all women are "whores". He also believes that his mother (Joanne Moore Jordan) is the cause of all his problems. Albert also suffers from severe WBHS (Warren Beatty Hair Syndrome).

Dr. Burton (Frank Whiteman) is convinced that Albert is dangerously disturbed and should be institutionalized. Shockingly, mum won't hear of it.

Albert begins a killing spree, sporting an awesome Fedora / turtleneck ensemble. All the while, the theme song "Poor Albert" plays on like some terribly-written accomplice.

I DISMEMBER MAMA is a thoroughly preposterous experiment in early 1970's misogyny. It wavers between being a tale of sadistic terror and a hilarious parody of itself. The aforementioned, misplaced theme song is a marvel!

Albert himself is at once a repellent, murdering pig, and a complete bonehead. One simply must witness his jumping matador dance routine!

BEST SCENES: #1- Albert's theological discussion on the lake, intercut with scenes of his last homicide! #2- Abert's history lesson on the way to a hotel bridal suite! Pure cinematic genius!

Special accolades must go to Greg Mullavey's unforgettable role as the yelling cop. Really, who yells like that?

No human soul could possibly be prepared for the crying, screaming, tantrum-induced anti-doom of the finale!

No actual mannequins were harmed...