Unhinged is a 1982 American slasher film directed by Don Gronquist in his directorial debut, written by Gronquist and Reagan Ramsey, and starring Laurel Munson, Janet Penner, Sara Ansley, Virginia Settle, and Barbara Lusch. The film follows three young women who, after suffering a car accident, are taken in by a mysterious spinster and her infirm mother at their rural mansion. Over the course of the next several days, the women are stalked by an unseen killer.
The screenplay for Unhinged was completed by Gronquist and Ramsey in September 1977, when it was registered for U.S. copyright. An independent film, Unhinged was produced on a budget of $100,000, with principal photography taking place in Gronquist's hometown of Portland, Oregon in the fall of 1981. The majority of the film was shot at the Pittock Mansion over 19 nights due to the estate's daily operation as a museum. Additional photography took place in St. Johns and Forest Park, as well as in Gronquist's own home. Gus Van Sant served as a location scout for the production.
Unhinged screened at the Cannes Film Festival's Marché du Film in May 1983, and was released on video shortly after in the UK by Avatar Communications. It subsequently appeared on the list of the UK's 72 "video nasties," which led to an expanded role for the BBFC. Numerous video copies of the film were seized and confiscated by the British government during police raids between 1983 and 1985. Despite censorship efforts for its home video release, the film received an 18 certificate from the BBFC for theatrical release, and screened throughout the UK in the latter half of 1983. In the USA, it opened at the Northwest Film & Video Festival in Portland on August 20, 1983.
Though the film received little critical attention at the time of its release, it has been subject to retrospective reviews and reassessment, receiving praise for its atmosphere, synthesizer-based musical score, and twist ending, with criticism aimed at its acting and pacing. In 2014, the film's original score by Jonathan Newton was ranked at number 40 in a list of the 100 greatest horror film scores by Fact magazine. The film has also been the topic of scholarly discussion due to its depiction of repression and gender dysphoria of its villain, and has also drawn comparisons to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) and William Castle's Homicidal (1961). A loose remake was made in England and released in 2017, followed by a second remake, Unhinged Retribution in 2023.
Plot On October 22, 1981, college students Terry, Nancy, and Gloria embark for a music festival in rural Washington. While driving on a forested road, the women smoke marijuana in the car, while a news radio broadcaster announces the recent disappearance of two teenage girls in the area. A sudden storm causes Nancy to accidentally crash, rendering all three unconscious.
Terry awakes to find her and her friends alive, sheltered in an isolated mansion owned by the Penroses: the middle-aged spinster Marion, her mother, and their groundskeeper, Norman. Gloria is the only one with serious injuries, so Marion suggests they spend the night until Gloria is able to leave. Terry and Nancy are invited to dinner with Marion and her elderly, senile, crippled mother. Throughout dinner, Marion's mother rants and raves, espousing her misandrist views, and recounts how her husband left her for another woman when the family lived as socialites in Rhode Island. She also recurrently accuses Marion of bringing men into the home. Later, while the women relax in the parlour, a mysterious man watches them through the windows.
Later that night, Terry finds a human tooth under her bed and subsequently awakens to the sound of a man breathing heavily upstairs. In the morning, Terry and Nancy take a shower, while someone spies on them through a peephole in the wall. Later that day, Nancy elects to walk to the local village alone and starts off through the woods. When she arrives at a rural country road, she is attacked by a cloaked figure with a long scythe, who slashes her to death. That evening at dinner, Mrs. Penrose continues to ramble about her disgust for men and harangues Marion, while Terry worries about Nancy's absence. Alone in her bedroom, Terry once again hears the breathing and goes to investigate. She searches the attic, where she finds black-and-white pictures of two children and an old tool belt containing a dusty handgun and a machete. She goes back downstairs and sees the man staring in at her through the window, and runs screaming through the house. Marion consoles her and reveals that the man is Carl, her developmentally disabled younger brother. Marion insists that he is harmless, and Terry goes back to bed.
The next day, Terry asks Norman if he has seen Nancy. Norman reveals that he never spoke with her, and instead tells her a confusing story about the two teenage girls who recently disappeared in the woods. At nightfall, Gloria regains consciousness, and Terry tells her she feels the two need to leave. When Terry leaves the room, an unseen figure attacks a sleeping Gloria, plunging a hatchet through her head. Later in the evening, Terry finds Gloria's room empty and asks Marion where she is. Marion suggests she may have gone outside for a breath of fresh air. As she steps outside, Terry is attacked and chased by Carl. She hides in a shed, where she discovers the dead bodies of her friends along with several other dismembered corpses. Carl breaks through the window and tries to grab her, but she manages to escape and runs back to the house as Carl chases after her.
Hurrying into the attic, Terry obtains the handgun and shoots Carl in the head, killing him. Marion rushes upstairs after hearing the struggle and chastises Terry for killing her brother. Terry responds by ordering Marion to search the shed. After a moment of silence, Marion, now speaking in a deep, masculine register, tells her that Carl had nothing to do with the corpses in the shed. Terry looks at Marion in confusion, who brandishes a machete. Marion reveals that she is actually Mrs. Penrose's second son, and Carl's younger biological brother, who dresses and presents as a woman. Terry attempts to flee, but Marion knocks her to the ground and maniacally stabs her to death whilst raving about the pressures of her gender dysphoria, and of her obligations to care for her brother and mother. As Terry bleeds to death on the floor, Mrs. Penrose calls for Marion from downstairs, asking if there is a man up there. Marion, covered in blood, responds in her feminine voice: "No, mother."
Cast
Production Development The original screenplay for Unhinged was written some time prior to late 1977 by Portland, Oregon native Don Gronquist and Reagan Ramsey, the latter of whom provided additional dialogue. The 145-page screenplay was registered for copyright in the USA on September 21, 1977. Commenting on its origins, Gronquist said that he and Ramsey devised the story together while drinking together in local bars: "We were sitting there talking about, how cheap can we make a movie? How cheap could we make a commercially viable 35 mm film?"
Prior to filming Unhinged, Gronquist had made his debut as a producer on the independent film Stark Raving Mad (1981), a biographical account of the murders committed by Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate.
Unhinged was executive-produced by Dale Farr, with Dan Biggs serving as an associate producer.
Casting The cast was made up entirely of Portland locals, including stage actresses Janet Penner and Virginia Settle as Marion and Mrs. Penrose, respectively. Local stage actor John Morrison was cast in the film as Norman Barnes, a mansion groundskeeper. Sara Ansley, who portrayed Nancy, was a model whom Gronquist hired through a talent agency. Laurel Munson, who portrays the lead role of Terry, was also a model.
Filming
Unhinged was produced on a budget of $100,000, which included funds from local investors, including helicopter and aviation entrepreneur Betsy Johnson, a friend of Gronquist's who later became an Oregon State Senator. The crew was hired locally out of Portland and Corvallis. Local filmmaker Gus Van Sant assisted as a location scout for the production.
Principal photography of Unhinged took place over a six-week period in the fall of 1981 by cinematographer Richard Blakeslee at the Pittock Mansion, an historic 22-room French Renaissance-style château in Portland, built in 1914. Jan Baross, a local filmmaker and production assistant, helped secure the mansion as a filming location. Because Pittock Mansion is a tourist attraction and city property, the bulk of the film had to be shot overnights from approximately 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. over a course of nineteen evenings. The night shoots were described as "a disruption in the lives of everyone involved," with dinner breaks occurring at 10:00 p.m. Gronquist's wife, Wendy, served as production assistant on the film, preparing meals for the cast and crew, while Sol Leibowitz served as production designer.
Reflecting on the shoot in a newsletter during production, Blakeslee commented: "Don is going a little crazy by this time, zeroing in on something new every day.... The one we enjoy most is, 'I've lost my pages!' This is in reference to his script…which he has taken apart and carries around like a bundle of autumn leaves; at various times, these will be lost, splattered with stage blood, misplaced, left in other rooms, soaked with water, covered with muddy footprints."
Additional photography took place in Forest Park; the film's opening scenes feature shots of the St. Johns Bridge, and the road accident scene was filmed on Northwest Germantown Road near Linnton in North Portland. The interiors of the attic were shot in Gronquist's own house. The film's special makeup effects were created by Janet Scoutten, who had recently designed special effects for the slasher film The Slumber Party Massacre. Filming was completed by mid-October 1981. The film was processed locally by TekniFilmLabs, a film processing lab in Portland. On October 30, 1981, Gronquist and actress Janet Penner appeared on a local public TV segment to promote the film.
Music Unhinged boasts an original score by Jonathan Newton, who later scored Shadow Play, starring Dee Wallace and Cloris Leachman, before becoming a professor of music at PSU.
In 2014, the British music publication Fact magazine ranked the film's score at number 40 in a list of the 100 greatest horror film scores of all time. The list's compilers, John Twells and Joseph Morpurgo, noted: "Newton’s score for synth marries Carpenter-style moodiness with unusually dynamic drum programming, and, simply put, ticks all the boxes: genuinely killer theme, impressive atmospherics, [and] occasional moments of unsignposted lunacy." Bart Bealmear, writing for DangerousMinds.net in 2018, praised the score as "exceptional" and "stellar," noting that it "is easily the best part of the picture." In a press release for a 2019 screening at the Spectacle Theater, Newton's composition was likened to "a black mass that’s being sabotaged by an all-skeleton Soft Cell cover band."
In addition to its original score, the film features the classical compositions "Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor" by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and "Nocturne (Bal Phantôme)" by Francis Poulenc.
Release Unhinged screened at the Cannes Marché du Film on May 14, 1983. It was released theatrically in the United Kingdom on June 21, 1983, with an 18 certificate. It continued to show on British screens in numerous cities including Manchester, Lancashire, London, Bolton, and Coventry, among others, through December of that year. It was sometimes paired as a double feature with Patrick (1978) and Screwballs (1983).
In the United States, it was shown on August 20, 1983, at the Northwest Film & Video Festival in Portland, Oregon.
Censorship