GusF Based on the 1961 novel "Nightmare" by Anne Blaisdell, this is a rather engrossing thriller. It was released in the US under the less subtle title "Die! Die! My Darling!", referring to a line of dialogue used towards the end, while the novel's title had already been used by Hammer for an unrelated film the previous year. This film belongs to the studio's post-"Psycho" cycle of psychological thrillers, which includes one of their absolute best films Taste of Fear. While it was nowhere near in the same league as that film, it nevertheless has a strong script by Richard Matheson which features many highly memorable moments. The weakest part of the film is the subpar, pedestrian and at times hysterical direction of Silvio Narizzano. It would have likely been better if one of Hammer's regular and more capable directors - Terence Fisher, Roy Ward Baker, Seth Holt, John Gilling, Val Guest, etc. - had directed it instead. That said, Matheson's script is able to paper over most of the holes.In her final film before her death in 1968, Tallulah Bankhead is wonderfully over the top as the venomous and deranged Mrs. Trefoile, the religious fanatic to end all religious fanatics. She does not allow any mirrors in her house as they promote the sin of vanity, she considers lipstick to be "filth" and she regards using condiments as an affront to God as the food that he created should be eaten unadorned. Bankhead is often very frightening as Mrs. Trefoile, though less so than Bette Davis as the monstrous title character in "The Nanny", and gets all of the best lines in the film. Mrs. Trefoile was once an actress and describes how her husband rescued her from the "pit of evil" - presumably Hollywood - and saved her soul from eternal damnation. Bankhead had last worked in said pit of evil 12 years earlier and photographs from her 1930s heyday are used to represent her character's previous career. In one of my favourite moments, Mrs. Trefoile matter-of-factly describes the parish's very nice new rector as an "evil man" since he remarried two years after his first wife's death. However, the best line in the film refers to a red dress: "Scarlet again. Destroy it!" It wasn't really meant to be funny but I couldn't help but laugh.In spite of a dodgy start, Stefanie Powers is quite good as Patricia Carroll, who finds herself the victim of Mrs. Trefoile's tyranny. She was never exactly a superb actress but she had become a considerably more polished and engaging one by the time that she starred in "Hart to Hart". The unfortunate Patricia was engaged to Mrs. Trefoile's son Steven before his death several years earlier and, over the objections of her new fiancé Alan Glentower, decides to pay her respects to the aforementioned psycho in her house in a quiet, secluded corner of England. Mrs. Trefoile soon comes to view her as a degenerate Jezebel as she does not attend church regularly, wears lipstick and likes to see her reflection on occasion. She blames Patricia for Stephen's death and is deeply disturbed - not that she had far to go - when she learns that Patricia would not have married him even if he had not died. In order to save Patricia's soul from the temptations of the flesh / salt, she holds her captive in her attic with the help of her servants Harry and Anna and attempts to starve her into repentance. Bit of an extreme reaction, really. Patricia is a very strong and resilient character who refuses to bow down to Mrs. Trefoile even though her life is placed at serious risk for the last two-thirds of the film. There is a great sense of tension between the two women, which has more to do with the performances and the writing than the directing. The way that Mrs. Trefoile says "Patricia" was enough to send a chill down my spine!Peter Vaughan is excellent as Harry, a former criminal who attempts to rape Patricia at one point. Mrs. Trefoile saves her but not out of the goodness of her heart. Yootha Joyce is very good as Harry's long suffering wife Anna, who displays a misplaced loyalty towards her mistress (and her husband) and does the most to assist Mrs. Trefoile in trying to save Patricia's soul. Maurice Kaufmann is perfectly fine but fairly forgettable as Alan. I took an instant and intense dislike to him in the opening scene when he tried to order Patricia around - even using the word "order" - but he redeemed himself towards the end. In one of his first films, Donald Sutherland, who is a superb actor, plays the severely intellectually impaired gardener Joseph but does not have much of an opportunity to display his great skill on this occasion. Although he worked in the UK extensively during this time, this was his only appearance in a Hammer film. Overall, this is a very enjoyable film in spite of the often shoddy and amateurish direction.

Spikeopath Fanatic (AKA: Die! Die! My Darling! is directed by Silvio Narizzano and adapted to screenplay by Richard Matheson from the novel "Nightmare" written by Anne Blaisdell. It stars Tallulah Bankhead, Stefanie Powers, Peter Vaughan, Yootha Joyce, Donald Sutherland and Maurice Kaufmann. Music is by Wilfred Josephs and cinematography by Arthur Ibbetson.Pat Carroll (Powers) decides to make a courtesy call on Mrs. Trefoile (Bankhead), the mother of the man she was courting seriously before his untimely death in an automobile accident. Her good intentions are not exactly welcomed with open arms, in fact Pat finds herself spun into a vortex of religious fanaticism and maternal madness.Psycho-Biddy sub-genre meets Hammer Film's one word titled series of Psycho inspired thrillers, Fanatic is a thoroughly bonkers movie. Not in that it doesn't make sense or it is complex supreme, it's that it operates in some campy feverish world, a place where Baby Jane rests in peace. Unfortunately it's not as good as the other films that make up this wickedly entertaining sub-genre of horror.That it's amazingly riveting is due to a bunch of cast performances that have to be seen to be believed. For even as the film meanders, where the makers repeatedly fall back on Pat Carroll's predicament with boorish time filling sequences, there's something enigmatically joyous about Bankhead and the crew making merry hell in this Hammeresque carnival of horrors.Legend has it that Bankhead was permanently sozzled throughout the production, it matters not, always a tough old dame who never suffered fools gladly, it's a bravura performance that's rich with the excessiveness that the story demands. Joyce and Vaughan would become legends of situation comedies in Britain, but here they get to play seriously stern and creepy lecher respectively, with the latter tasked with waving his shotgun around as an unsubtle phallic erection!Sutherland is woeful, but again it matters not, and it's actually not his fault, the character as written is a village idiot, a wet pants of a man purely in the story to fulfil the freak show quotient. Then there is the darling Powers, so young, sexy and vibrant, she escapes criticism because her performance is so measured it deflects from the preposterousness of it all.Lipstick is banned, sex is banned, the colour red is banned and Religio Guignol is the order of the day. It's a film hard to recommend with any sort of confidence, but it's just nutty enough to make it worth seeking out as a curio piece. 6/10

bowmanrand I wasn't expecting too much, but I actually enjoyed this movie and found parts of it quite suspenseful. OK, there are some cheesy elements for sure, but overall it is worth seeing. Tallulah is great, and I also really liked Yootha Joyce's dark performance as Anna.I wanted to see this because I recently saw the play "Looped" starring Valerie Harper as Tallulah. A fun show - I saw it at Arena Stage in DC but it's supposed to be headed for Broadway. Anyhoo, the premise of the play is based on a true story of Tallulah taking many long hours to re-record or "loop" one line of dialogue from this movie. The line is about a third of the way in, when they are leaving the house to go into town. Tallulah says boozily: "And Patricia, as I was telling you, even though that deluded rector has in literal effect closed the church to me, I have as you note designed to maintain proper service of the Lord in my own home." Or something close to that. In the play they took some artistic license, and shortened and changed the line to: "And so, Patricia, as I was telling you, that deluded rector has, in literal effect, closed the doors of the church to me." Which was good since in the play she says it about 50 times!

Lechuguilla Marvelous Tallulah Bankhead is the only reason I consented to see this mid-sixties horror flick. As an actress, Tallulah had a unique on screen persona, with that throaty, raspy voice and those animated facial expressions. She gives this film everything she's got. It's a wonderful, melodramatic performance.But the script is beneath her. It starts out okay. Tallulah plays Mrs. Trefoile, an eccentric elderly woman holed up in her big house with just her servants. Her son has died and, as a result, her clinging to his memory has made her more than a little ... theological. When her son's fiancée pays her a courtesy call, Mrs. Trefoile at first is pleased. Then realizing that her once-to-be daughter-in-law does not share Mrs. Trefoile's interest in the ascetic life, Mrs. Trefoil's attitude ... changes.Some of the dialogue is a hoot, like when the daughter-in-law asks for some salt to flavor her food at dinner. Mrs. Trefoile replies confidently: "We use no condiments of any kind in this house, Patricia. God's food should be eaten unadorned ... For instance this meatloaf is synthetic, compounded of bread, oatmeal, and wheat germ". Marvelous!The problem with the film is that the plot makes the daughter-in-law so weak that she is initially unable to escape the clutches of this old woman. How can that be? Yet, if the daughter-in-law did escape, there wouldn't be any story.Further, casting of the servants is weak. And the Donald Sutherland character is unnecessary.The story is set in England. That's okay. But given Mrs. Trefoile's obsession with biblical scripture, I think the story would have been more potent had it been set in the American South.Opening credits sequence has a whimsical, light tone to it, suggesting that the story should not be taken seriously. And I didn't. The plot is too weak for that. Yet, I greatly admire the effort that Tallulah Bankhead put into her performance. For that, mostly, the film is worth watching.