the audience applauded

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Mobster Nicky Rocco is gunned down in the middle of a Louisiana swamp. With his dying breath, he vows revenge on all of those who did him wrong – including pregnant girlfriend Ruby (Piper Laurie). Some 16 year later, Ruby lives at and operates an out-of-the-way drive-in with some of the former gang members she's given jobs to. Also in Ruby's household is Nicky's teenage daughter, Leslie – a very troubled girl. Things start to get really weird when Nicky's former associates begin dying horrible, unexplained deaths. Leslie's demeanor also begins to change until one fateful night when her body is fully possessed by her long dead and wronged father. Through Leslie, Nicky repeats his vow of vengeance.Overall, as my wife would say, Ruby is pretty much hot garbage. While the movie has its fair share of reasonably spooky moments, there's too much here that I didn't care for to give the film a positive rating. The plot is a mess, the dialogue is often silly, and there are long patches of the movie where nothing much happens. It wasn't until the final 10-15 minutes that anything really peaked my interest. The acting is all over the place. Piper Laurie chews enough scenery to choke on. Her overacting really got old. The usually reliable Stuart Whitman, in contrast, plays his part so understated that Laurie literally runs him over. No one in the cast really stood out to me. Also, the film is supposedly set in 1951. I've seen a number of goofs listed on IMDb about the film's setting. My issue is that it just doesn't look like 1951. The way Ruby was filmed, it has a distinct 1970s look to it that no manner of old cars or old clothes can hide. I don't know any way to say it other than I never felt like I was watching a movie set in 1951.Finally, the movie we see projected on the drive-in screen is Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. It says a lot about my feelings on Ruby when I say that I would have much rather been watching Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.

I don't understand all the negative reviews. Piper Laurie gives an emotional, strong performance as Ruby. The film has atmosphere, is moody, and somewhat original (particularly with the death scenes). Janit Baldwin looks remarkably like Piper Laurie in some scenes (I thought that was Piper Laurie on the theatrical release poster until I saw the film). Roger Davis, an actor with a spotty career, does a good job in his second film for Harrington (he had previously been in Killer Bees). And the ending...I love it! It's both chilling and effective. Check it out!

Raw and gritty horror/exploitation movies from the glorious '70s decade simply can't start any better than "Ruby" does… With a fuzzy and soundless flashback, set in the mid-1930s, and witness the promenade of two young lovers in a Florida swamp area. Suddenly a car drives up and the four passengers that come out relentlessly execute the boy, Nicky, who apparently was an over-ambitious mobster. Now that's what I call an opener, and it even gets better, as we fast-forward to the year 1951 at a typical drive-in theater where a projectionist guy in his cabin inexplicably gets killed by his own film reel! Great stuff, but then of course the script has some explaining and character drawings to do, and the whole thing quickly crumbles apart like a cookie! It turns out that the murdered mobster's girlfriend Ruby now runs a drive-in and actually employs the retired assailants. Apparently Nicky extracts his vengeance from beyond the grave and to obtain this he also possesses the mind and body of their now 16-year- old daughter Leslie that he never saw getting born. So basically what we have here is a miscellany of gangster movie with revenge-flick and spiritual possession elements, and all this is served to us by an over-the-top bizarrely behaving Piper Laurie who was clearly asked to come across as unnerving as she did in last year's box office hit "Carrie"! I will gladly admit that I personally stopped paying attention to the incoherence and numerous holes in the script, and simply tried to enjoy the crazy murder sequences and wonderfully trashy atmosphere and scenery as much as I possibly could. Quite frankly I can't explain why little Leslie walks around like a spider just as Linda Blair did in "The Exorcist", or what exactly is the added value of Roger Davis' character, or even whether or not it gets revealed that Ruby did betray her lover all those years ago. Fact remains, however, that "Ruby" contains a handful of awesome moments that are simultaneously odd, cheesy and disturbing! Mobster bodies' are being tossed around and smashed against trees, the flamboyant Ruby spies on her drive-in employees through a telescope whilst being drunk and one poor sucker even ends up hacked up in a soda vending machine. Perhaps director Curtis Harrington ("Queen of Blood", "Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?") and his crew could have done even more with the smart drive-in setting, but they already include a couple of atmospheric moments, like for example when Ruby finds herself all alone in the middle of the drive-in parking and haunted by her murdered lover's voice coming out of all the separate speakers. In conclusion, "Ruby" most certainly isn't a good movie if you analyze or review it thoroughly, but it contains multiple strong moments and memorable details to make it a must-see for admirers of 70s horror cinema (drive-in classics and otherwise)

I really wanted to like this film. I loved the director's earlier "Night Tides" movie which I saw at a special screening in the '90s somewhere in Hollywood. Many critics have praised this film and I heard it was a minor hit when it came out so I was looking forward to it.That said, this is not an easy movie to like. I think part of the problem lies in the forced attempt at creating the '50s setting. In larger budgeted films where you can use a studio back lot or hire tons of top-notch art directors, set dressers, expensive costumers, etc., that type of recreation can work (although sometimes it does do not) but in this case it seemed like they were trying to too hard to set it in the '50s -- it seemed off. My wife walked by while I was watching it, didn't know anything about this movie and said, "it looks like a '70s movie." Why would she say this? Something about it is off, the haircuts seem a little bit too shaggy and some of the costumes aren't quite right. It was a coup to get all the period cars though, gotta give credit where credit is due.Anyway, getting to the story. This is also kinda weird. We're supposed to believe that a nightclub singer whose beloved boyfriend was killed by his mobster friends right in front of her eyes would hire the same mobsters to help her run a drive-in after they are paroled from prison? And she's even sleeping with one of them? I don't think so. Had a hard time buying that. Piper Laurie as said singer is also shown in flashbacks from 17 years ago and instead of getting a different actress (one who might be 30 pounds lighter) they simply change her hair do. I'm not buying it.The acting is hit and miss. Piper is one-note shrill. Stuart Whitman as her retired mobster boyfriend is pretty good. The guy playing the parapsychologist (or whatever he was - somehow he doubled as the prison doctor, from what the dialogue inferred) seemed like something out of another movie entirely. The best acting goes to the weirdo possessed daughter who gets to be in the movie's few effective scenes when she babbles in a man's voice. Maybe if the film included more of these "Exorcist"-inspired scenes it would have worked better.The laughable ending with Piper fighting a plastic skeleton in the water is mind-numbingly awful. Even worse is the "Laura" rip-off end song which is just bad.