03/18/06 Die! Die! My Darling!

Die! Die! My Darling! (1965), directed by Silvio Narizzano

watched w/ Leslie; VHS (personal copy) @ home

In what seems to me to be a lesser quality role-reversal of Hitchcock's "Psycho" mixed w/ the old Hollywood glamour fall from grace (meaning, seeing older movie vixens that have not aged well), this debacle of a horror film would serve better as an MST3K track. This idea is dumb, and although it is supposed to be fictional, what idiot would ever do what this genius Stefanie Powers' character does? Here's the plot...woman has recently deceased fiance, but is now engaged to a new man (doesn't take her long, eh?). On a trip, the woman decides to get closure over the sudden loss of her first fiance, she will meet his mother to ease both their pains. In a remote country home, filled with odd caretakers, woman finds out that the mother-in-law is a psychotically pious woman who grieves in some sort of weird Oedipal shrine to her fallen son. Seeing the sinful nature of the woman who would have been her daughter-in-law, crazy old bat imprisons, tortures, and tries to kill her; all in the name of the Lord. The weak woman plays so easily into the twisted trap, as she manages to stumble on every cliche in the captured-by-maniacs genre (i.e. tripping in her high heels trying to run away). The wicked mother is played by Tallulah Bankhead (formerly the Black Widow from TV's "Batman"), in her last film role. As I stated before, if you look at her photos from the early 30's & 40's, she was a hottie, but I'm sure years of smoking & drinking in Hollywood royalty caused the downward spiral of career choices.

1 out of 5 stars