New review: Fanatic
Oh my, it’s been a while and I’d forgotten how batshit crazy Hammer’s proto-Hitchcock thrillers were. Way, WAY more batshit than the company’s better-known gothic horrors. Which is ironic considering the preponderance of actual bats there are in those films.
So here not only do we have possibly the greatest film title ever, but what happens on-screen actually lives up to its lurid promise.
Oh yes, poor old Stefanie Beacham gets put through the mill in this by a perpetually hammered (ho ho) Tallulah Bankhead. But it’s heartening to see that throughout it all, Stef’s hairspray continues to do its job. Even a dip in a nearby river and a drop through a greenhouse roof fails to dent its mod 60s immaculacy. Which is as it should be.
For the uninitiated, yes, I’m talking about that Stefanie Beacham (and for you older uninitiated, THAT Tallulah Bankhead, too). Star spotters can also see Peter “Grouty” Vaughan doing what he does best (e.g. being absolutely terrifying), Yootha “Mildred” Joyce almost unrecognisable without her trademark peroxide barnet and doing an early pitch for a role in Prisoner Cell Block H, and most spectacular of all, a young Donald Sutherland monging it up (I’m sorry, but that’s what he’s doing) for all he’s worth. Which probably wasn’t much at the time.
So come with me to yet another dilapidated old mansion stuffed with gothic crap and peopled by absolute nutcases – and find out who “My darling” is, and who wants them to “Die! Die!”.
I promise you, it’s worth it.
