the maid Barbara Dowling as Kathleen Haloran Production Francis Ford Coppola worked as a sound man on Corman's The Young Racers (1963), a racing film which starred Campbell and Magee. That film was shot in several different countries, and after production was completed in Ireland, Corman still had $22,000 of the film's allocated $165,000 budget remaining. Corman originally thought of using the funds to direct a "quickie" film himself, but his schedule made this impractical. Instead, Corman suggested that Coppola remain in Ireland with a small crew and direct a low-budget horror film, to be produced by Corman. Coppola later recalled, "Roger wanted to make Dementia 13 cheaply. He wanted it to be homicidal, sort of a copy of Psycho. You know, gothic and psychological, with some kind of terrible knife-killing scene thrown in. So I wrote the script to order". Coppola wrote a brief draft story idea in one night. The next morning, he described to Corman the most vividly detailed sequence: a half-naked woman ties several dolls to the bottom of a lake, then surfaces to find herself at the feet of an axe murder: "axed to death!", Coppola exclaimed. Corman was impressed enough to immediately provide Coppola with the $22,000 for the film. The young director was able to arrange an additional $20,000 in financing himself by pre-selling the European rights to a producer named Raymond Stross. Coppola did not inform Corman of the production's additional funding ... and quickly moved the initial $22,000 into a bank account in case an angry Corman ever attempted to reclaim his original investment. Coppola's friend Al Locatelli served as the film's art director and helped Coppola write the final script in three days, uncredited. The speed at which the screenplay was completed resulted in unrealistic, "stilted" dialogue that Campbell recalled as being very difficult for the actors to speak. The majority of the American actors in the cast were friends of Coppola's from UCLA, and many of them paid their own way to Ireland for the opportunity to appear in a film. Most of the Irish cast members were from the Abbey Theatre and were paid strictly minimum wage salaries. Eithne Dunne received approximately $600 for her performance. The cast and crew lived together in a farm house located outside of Dublin. Howth Castle, located in the Dublin suburb of Howth, depicted the fictitious "Castle Haloran" in the film. Casting