"Деменция": История безумного фильма и его запретов.

1955 film
The original film had no dialogue, only music and some sound effects, like doors slamming, dubbed laughter, etc. The film's music score is by avant garde composer George Antheil, vocalized by Marni Nixon. There are no lyrics as such. Jazz musician Shorty Rogers and his band, the Giants, can be seen and heard performing in the night club scene.

Dementia was briefly released in 1953 before it was banned by the New York State Film Board, who deemed it "inhuman, indecent, and the quintessence of gruesomeness". Two years later, it was re released in New York City on December 22, 1955, with four edits demanded by the censors. It was paired as a double feature with another 50 minute film, Picasso. Harris' version also has music without dialogue, but with added narration by actor Ed McMahon. Dementia was finally passed in 1970 without edits for United Kingdom theatrical release.

The New York Daily News criticized the film for suffering from a lack of coherence: "The presentation, designed as a shocker, is enough to drive anybody crazy with alternate sessions of tedium and bedlam". Variety wrote that it "May be the strangest film ever offered for theatrical release". A critic of The New York Times deemed it "A piece of film juvenilia despite its good intentions An understanding of Mr. Parker's desire to say something new cannot reconcile one to the lack of poetic sense, analytical skill and cinematic experience exhibited here". Some critical publications were less critical, such as Cahiers du Cinéma, who noted: "To what degree this film is a work of art, we are not certain but, in any case, it is strong stuff".

On October 17, 2000, Kino Video released Dementia on Region 1 DVD. The disc also includes the Jack H. Harris released version of the film, Daughter of Horror.

Daughter of Horror is perhaps most famous for its appearance in The Blob (1958), where it is the film playing in the theater when the Blob strikes. The film has been compared to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) as being a portrait of an insane mind from the "inside out". In 2015 the rock band Faith No More used edited footage from Dementia to create a video for their song "Separation Anxiety".