Little Fishy From the Brook, Poppa's Got You on a Hook --

[peter johnson]

     Okay, I asked about this one some time back, with no success, but there are so many new folk around now, I thought I'd give it another go --
     My wife saw this movie in Douglas, Wyoming, back in the early '60's, so it may be much older, as she says this was not a "first-run" house, but would show these multi-features all day on Saturdays --
     She saw, for instance, Ray Harryhausen's "20 Million Miles to Earth" there around the same time --
     Okay, she thinks the film was British, though that could be wrong, as she recalls accents.  There is a family at a country manor.  It may have been one of those "boarding school" films, though she isn't sure.  They find the body of a little girl in a pond. 
     What sticks out for her is/was that the killer would sing-song a little rhyme:  "Little fishy from the brook, poppa's got you on a hook!". 
     Now she's struggled to describe it over the years & sometimes it sounds like "Dementia 13" -- no, we watched that/wasn't it -- Parts of it sound like "The Bad Seed" -- no, watched that, not it either --
     She says the killer REMINDED her of Oliver Reed, but we've done an exhaustive IMDB on Reed, & unless he's hiding one, he's not the killer.
     Any help with this one, please?
peter johnson/denny crane

[Mr_Vindictive]

I know I'm not being much help here, as you've already mentioned Dementia 13...but that rhyme is directly from the film.  Could it be that her memory is mixing together two different films?  I know I often have that problem.

[peter johnson]

Whoa!  Hold on!!  Really? 
I didn't hear or see the "little fishy" rhyme in "Dementia 13" that I remember, but all memory tricks are fair game --
Really?  Nobody ever said that's in the film & I don't recall hearing it there --
Well, if that's true, then, I have to re-rent it and listen --
At what point in the film/where do they say that???
peter johnson/denny huh?

[Mr_Vindictive]

Here's a link:  http://www.horror-wood.com/demen.htm

"Dr. Caleb has taken Billy to a pub and gets him intoxicated all the better to interrogate him. The pub, obviously the real article, and its denizens are wonderfully atmospheric. The exchange between Billy and Caleb, both shot in tight close-up, is tense and beautifully delivered especially by the great Patrick Magee. The whole scene resembles the wonderful moment in The Body Snatcher where MacFarland and Grey have their penultimate confrontation. But then it abruptly ends. Besides, I doubt that even the perceptive Caleb could have instantaneously deduced the solution to the entire Halloran family malaise solely through Billy mumbling "fishy, fishy in the brook – papa caught you on a hook"!"


Hope it helps!

[peter johnson]

This has got to be it --
Don't know how I missed that last time around -- Thankyou very much!!
I guess I really do have to rewatch it now --
peter duh/denny duh

[peter johnson]

Oh my gosh,  :buggedout:Amazing. My brother & I used to spend part of our allowance  & snow shoveling/sidewalk sweepin' money to go once a week for a nearly All day movie viewing in Douglas Wyoming. The theater was packed with kids. The projectionist must've been a Horror fan, swigging away b/c he always showed a cartoon (cool ones from the 1930s), a B movie (Erroll Flynn et alia). Then the "scary movie." "Pit & Pendulum" etc. When I was 12 & my brother was 10, in 1964, we saw a movie that scared the H** outta us forever. Our little sister was named Kathleen. This movie had heads chopped off, weird music & the constant singing "LIttle fishy from the brook, Papa's got you on a hook" NOBODY I knew had ever heard of a movie by this description & it's driven my brother (now a commander at the Pentegon!) Crazy. So thank you SO much for revealing the name of this Bizarre, hideously horrifying film "Dementia 13"
Sincerely, Dixie  Elder  (happy but often terrified wife of Peter  F. Johnson)

[Mr_Vindictive]

Glad to be of help.  I hate when I can't recall the name of a film, and only certain portions stick out in my mind.  Can get to be quite aggravating.  I hope that Dementia 13 is the film you're looking for.  I haven't seen it in quite some time but it does seem to fit the description.

On a side note, you should be often terrified.  You are married to Satan's Onion after all!

[dean]

I can't help but read this thread and laugh...

The irony of the movie with the title of Dementia related to someone whose memory is playing tricks on them [a sign perhaps PJ?] is quite funny. 

Nice to have success at last Peter eh?

Anyways that rhyme is pretty insane.  I love creepy nursery-type rhymes and it's such a good way of bugging people out.

[peter johnson]

. . . and here comes the chopper to chop off your HEAD!!
such a lovely nursery rhyme, that one too --
peter has no memory

[cheryl]

 

ok i'm working overnight and i mention the SAME song -- where someone is spookily singing that "fishy fishy in the brook..." (off-kilter ABC-song), and we looked it up on imdb.com and googled it, and only came up with Dementia13, or the Haunted and the Hunted in the UK.  we saw the video, but i recall it being in COLOR, and not as CHEESY!!!  i saw the movie on like WTTW-CHannel 11 (Chicago) in the 70's, around the time Dr. Who was still on... please ask your wife more on this! :)  The tune drove me nuts as a child in my dreams... and when I look at Dementia 13, parts seem familiar, and so does the general concept of the movie, but the part I remember is NOT THERE!!!
I know this is an old thread -- hopefully you'll see this.
Thanks! :) Cheryl