Die! Die! My Darling! (1965)

Director: Silvio Narizzano

Starring: Tallulah Bankhead, Stefanie Powers, Peter Vaughan, Maurice Kaufmann, Yootha Joyce, Donald Sutherland

More info: IMDb

Tagline: She's One Mean Mother-in-Law!

Plot: Bankhead plays Mrs. Trefoile, a psychotically pious mother still grieving the death of her son. Mrs. Trefoile holds his fiancée, Pat (Stefanie Powers), against her will and decides to reunite the young woman with her lover, whom she's convinced is now in heaven. But Pat has plans of her own and won't allow a crazy mother to decide her fate.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again? Nope.

#25 on Hammer Horror (1957-1976)

I can't find a trailer for this one anywhere. Oh, well. Thems tha breaks. This picture's OK. It's another one of those someone-gets-held-against-their-will movies that's predictable. What wasn't predictable was how light the tone was. Wilfred Josephs's whimsical score with a lot of harpsichord didn't help matters. Bankhead plays the religious nutter with frightening realism. The other actors do a very fine job but the real misstep is the tone. It's too damn light. There are moments of real horror and danger but they aren't nearly as effective as they would be had the picture gone to that dark place and just stayed there.


DDMD should have been a solid thriller. Instead it's just a piece of light entertainment that crosses the line every once in a while. I think it'd be tough to make this today without making it worse. You know how it is; they'd throw in some torture, amp up the sound effects, lots of jump scares, etc. Hollywood would take something like this with potential and ruin it even more than before. All I know is I've got one more Hammer thriller/horror (THE NANNY (1966)) on my Hammer list before everything else is straight up horror and mostly Gothic. Can't wait.