Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Ruby is one of those film that should be filed under so dumb its fun. Made by the great cult director Curtis Harrington Ruby makes very little sense in the terms of plot but for some reason and god only knows why is very entertaining.The story line goes something like this. In the Mid thirties gangster bad boy Nicky Rocco is shot dead in front of his pregnant girl friend Ruby. His assassins are members of his own gang. As he dies Nicky swears vengeance on his killers as his girlfriend Ruby goes into labour. From then the movie moves on 16 or so years with Ruby running a drive in movie theatre that shows films that haven't been made yet? (Attack of the 50 foot woman was made in 1958) but who cares.But guess what, shes hired all her dead boyfriends down on there luck killers to run the place.. Why.. Who really knows. But here's what we do know. Something very nasties going to happen to them. Then theirs the fact that ruby now has a mute doe eyed daughter who acts very strangely and some old blind dude in a wheel chair who live with Ruby.The film is quite incoherent, so you might ask yourself why is it so much fun... Well its down to another great unhinged performance from Piper Laurie in the title role. Add to that some great character actors to back her up including the ever reliable Stuart Whitman and Janit Baldwin as Ruby strange daughter and you have a gem of b movie with enough plot holes to drive a bus through. just enjoy the crazy plot don't take it seriously.

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.

Possible minor spoilers ahead...Ruby isn't too bad of a movie for a late 70's flick. It has the feel of a drive-in movie, and that actually is a part of the story. The similarities to CARRIE are evident, from Piper Laurie to the revenge motif in the plot. Ruby was marketed as being the movie up there with The Exorcist, The Omen and similar movies. I've even heard that it was the biggest independent money maker before John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN came along.Ruby suffers from one major flaw and that is the incredibly cheesy ending of the movie. The director Curtis Harrington had nothing to do with that final shot and was completely against it. It was filmed entirely by the Producer. The original ending was not as "shocking" or as "cheesy" and was much more involved.Another thing that should be noted is the old VHS releases were heavily edited from a TV version, from the same producer who screwed with the ending. All of the murder scenes were cut way back and it looked like a completely different film. That "Producer's Cut" version is really garbage. That may be a very good reason why this film does not have a higher rating on here. Find the Curtis Harrington "Director's Cut" version, even though the original ending is long since lost and sadly not included in it. That version is as close as you can find to the original vision of the film, even if it still has that awful ending.

RUBY is a bizarre amalgamation of incongruous elements taken from different genres that just doesn't work as a whole once they're put together. I haven't seen such a kookily conceived horror film since THE BOOGEYMAN. But unlike that Uli Lommel flick, which actually works in an odd kinda of way, RUBY's disparate elements are totally impossible to mix together to create a satisfying product. Take one part Film Noir flick, one part THE EXORCIST, one part CARRIE and one part DRIVE-IN exploitation flick and what you get is something that's just plain silly. The direction is very old fashioned, which would have worked in the 1960s but not in the gritty 1970s, when the film was released. And why is the title of the film called RUBY, when it should have been LESLIE? What does Ruby the character have anything to do with the horror in the story? If a movie can't get its title right, what hope is there for the rest of the film? RUBY is more of a showcase for Piper Laurie, who's good but for what? Singing (but is that what we're looking for in a horror film)? Or dressing up in vintage clothes (again, the same question...)? Or spouting inane "film noir" dialogue? While watching it, I couldn't help but feel that the production was highjacked by producers (like THE REDEEMER) and the whole thing was altered in order to capitalize on the success of CARRIE and THE EXORCIST, and other horror movies of that period. The end result is embarrassing.