Vengeance from Beyond: Ruby (1977)

Ruby (1977) (AKA Bloody Ruby)

Rating: *1/2

Starring:  Piper Laurie, Stuart Whitman and Roger Davis

Ripping off The Exorcist (1973) while at the same time trying not to, Ruby is a B-Grade cheese fest that mish-mashed gangster violence, supernatural possessions, and the old fashion slasher movie killings. Would have been a decent proto-slasher to enjoy from the late 70s before Carpenter's Halloween (1978), given that the story is anywhere entertaining.

Sixteen years ago, a mob gal named Ruby Claire meets up with her beau in the secluded part of a backwoods swamp, only to have the would-be romantics cut off by a raging mob posse and their machine guns, showering Ruby's lover dead with bullets.

Cut to the now of 1951, Ruby grows up to be the proprietor of a drive-in theatre, the caretaker of her brain dead mob boss and the mother of a sixteen year old named Leslie, who is mute and often wanders around the house in daze resembling a cat staring at blank space. Somewhere in this weird cavalcade comes a weirder turn of events as, for some reason, old lover boy decided to make a comeback from the grave and starts killing everyone responsible for his grisly demise. Yes, I wouldn't bother to beat around the bush trying to disguise the fact that it's the dead lover doing all the cooky supernatural hoohas, which includes an Exorcist-style possession. The movie tries to do that and, uh, look where all of that led to.

I can't really see what Ruby wanted to be; I know it's a proto-slasher with all the systematic killings done in the very core of the sub-genre itself, from POV shots of the killer to paranormal murders, but it never fully embraced it. The focus of the direction appears to be more on being an Exorcist rip-off, devoting the build-up to the supernatural possession that's happening with the title character's daughter, but frankly, that game isn't even played until the last few minutes of the movie, and, adding to the mediocrity of this attempt, the scene didn't even stand out.

Perhaps the problem here is that Ruby tends to slow down and dwell too much on unconventional plot pieces like talks of para-psychology involving bullet wound stigmata fueled by teen angst or low-budget demonic contortions, which is all fair and whatnot, but do we really need to dwell into these if we could have a good fun run with the killings instead? Sadly, the murders aren't really any better as they lack thrill seeing they're committed either offscreen or gets cut away just before the execution happens. On the contrary, the film's cast did have their fair roles done right, with Piper Laurie fresh from co-starring role in Carrie (1976), which netted her an Oscar nomination, trying her best to make her role memorable. In comparison, however, we can tell Carrie's story of a troubled, supernaturally charged girl is more superior to this dry entry of a spookfest.

Generally, Ruby tries to be spooky, but it lacks the direction to make it anything but. As a slasher, it totally lost all focus and spirals out of control to a rather disappointing finale involving a guilty woman getting sunk into a swamp by an angry skeleton. For reals.

Bodycount:
1 male shot to death
1 male strangled by film reel
1 male bludgeoned, skewered to a tree branch
1 male found dead inside a soda machine
1 male impaled by a flying speaker post
1 male found stabbed in the chest with knife
1 female strangled and drowned
Total: 7