Fanatic

"She's One Mean Mother-in-Law!"

1965 1h 37m EN

👍

6.6

SOLID

★6.6TMDB · 56

HorrorThrillerMystery

Synopsis

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A young woman is terrorized by her former fiance's demented mother who blames her for her son's death. Also known as Die! Die! My Darling!

“She's One Mean Mother-in-Law!”

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Where to watch · US

Cast

Tallulah Bankhead
Mrs. Trefoile
Stefanie Powers
Patricia Carroll
Peter Vaughan
Harry
Donald Sutherland
Joseph
Maurice Kaufmann
Alan Glentower
Yootha Joyce
Anna
Gwendolyn Watts
Gloria
Robert Dorning
Ormsby

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Silvio Narizzano
Writers: Richard Matheson
Languages: English
Countries: United Kingdom

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

ERA

Did you know

61 years old — a genuine piece of film history.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Silvio Narizzano, shot by Arthur Ibbetson. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Wilfred Josephs. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor John Dunsford shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Tallulah Bankhead and Stefanie Powers and Peter Vaughan carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "She's One Mean Mother-in-Law!".

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt0059106 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

WILD

Did you know

Only 56 TMDB ratings — you're getting ahead of the curve on this one.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Silvio Narizzano directs. Arthur Ibbetson behind the camera. Wilfred Josephs scores. John Dunsford cuts. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. Produced in United Kingdom. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

161 years old — a genuine piece of film history.
2Directed by Silvio Narizzano, shot by Arthur Ibbetson. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
3Original score by Wilfred Josephs. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
4Editor John Dunsford shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
5Tallulah Bankhead and Stefanie Powers and Peter Vaughan carry the top of the cast.
6Marketing tagline: "She's One Mean Mother-in-Law!".
7IMDB entry: tt0059106 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
8Only 56 TMDB ratings — you're getting ahead of the curve on this one.
9Released under 12 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Arthur Ibbetson
Original score: Wilfred Josephs
Editing: John Dunsford
Production design: Peter Proud
Makeup / hair: Richard Mills
Runtime: 97 min · 1h 37m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.78:1 (16:9)
Status: Released
Original language: EN
IMDB: Fanatic (1965)

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Silvio Narizzano

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Community reviews

What people are saying

John Chard2014-03-30
★ 6/10
Religio Guignol. 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

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