Inn of the Damned (1975)

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Dame Judith Anderson (Rebecca, Edge of Darkness) headlines this genre-blender from writer/director Terry Bourke (Night of Fear). Inn of the Damned is an Australian western mixed with a horror mystery, about an American bounty hunter (Airwolf‘s Alex Cord) pursuing a wanted murderer in the 1890s. The chase ultimately leads to a remote inn where an old couple (Anderson and Joseph Furst) never let their guests check out alive.

Inn of the Damned is a mixed bag that gets more interesting and entertaining as it veers into a more traditional horror movie in its last half hour, when the bounty hunter checks into the inn to find out why so many of its guests have disappeared. Before then, the film waivers in tone and struggles with narrative momentum whenever the innkeepers aren’t on-screen. The score is awkwardly eclectic, ranging from austere horror synth work to Benny Hill-style comedy ditties. The two-hour run time could have been cut by twenty or thirty minutes, and the long, unnecessary coda sequence explaining the innkeepers’ motivations reeks of Scooby-Doo.

But the good outweighs the bad for me. Inn of the Damned‘s weirdness and awkwardness is actually part of its charm. The grainy film stock marries with the natural beauty of New South Wales and candle-lit sets to create the sort of film environment I like to visit. Dame Judith gives the film’s most striking performance, especially when she’s playing an off-key piano and chatting vindictively to the lens over her shoulder. Writer/director Bourke, checking all the boxes in this potpourri of a movie, gives the film grindhouse cred by mixing in some exploitation-style sex appeal, including a scene in which two bickering female inn guests bathe topless together.

With Michael Craig, Tony Bonner, and John Meillon.