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

Neat Hammer thriller that plays more like a black comedy. Stefanie Powers plays a woman who goes to visit the mother of her former fiancé who died. That mother is an insanely crazy religious nut played by Tallulah Bankhead. Dear old Mom has some very definite ideas about right & wrong and she doesn't take a shine to Stefanie at all. After tolerating Tallulah for as long as she can, Stefanie finally tells her that she never intended to marry her son even had he lived. This pushes the old broad over the edge and she locks Stefanie up in a room in her house. She plans to starve her as a means of cleansing her soul. She's a real nut! Tallulah Bankhead, in her final film, gives one of moviedom's great hambone performances. It just has to be seen to be believed. She clearly has a lot of fun with the role. Powers plays it all straight which only adds to the insane joy of Bankhead's performance. Donald Sutherland also has an early role and is particularly ludicrous as a retarded handyman. A fun entry in the "crazy old lady" horror fad of the 1960s started by "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?".

This Hammer classic has been renamed to Fanatic. Maybe to capitalize on the fanatic in The Mist. I haven't see that one, but Mrs. Trefoile was bad enough.Played by Tallulah Bankhead, who I last saw in Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat, Mrs. Trefoile was a scary hag that lost her son and blamed his fiancé, Pat, played by Stefanie Powers, known most notable for the TV series "Hart to Hart." Mrs. Trefoile kept Pat locked up so she could "convert" her to be worthy of her son.Peter Vaughan, an actor with a hellacious amount of credits (173), was really funny as he kept trying to get into Power's pants. Don't blame him for trying, but the hag kept interrupting.One minor character of note was Donald Sutherland in his fourth or fifth movie.Great horror from the House of Hammer.

Religious zealots and well-meaning people held captive against their will are my two least-favorite subjects for movie material, and here they're combined for a really queasy effect. The plot, based on Anne Blaisdell's book "Nightmare", is somewhat helped along by frisky bits of levity dotting the scenario, but not by the general hysteria which is inherent in the film's U.S. title, "Die! Die! My Darling!". Tallulah Bankhead plays the Bible-thumping, embittered mother of a dead man whose prospective daughter-in-law (Stefanie Powers) pays her a social call. I don't see how keeping this girl captive in the rambling estate would bring Tallulah any satisfaction, and Powers' helplessness does nothing for her--nor for the viewer, who is also held prisoner (it's the Idiot Plot Syndrome: if she acted smartly and got away, there would be no movie). Richard Matheson's script had promise, but he's facetious instead of cunning, and moments such as Bankhead revealing she was once an actress on the stage are nothing more than campy prodding (and it backfires since Tallulah's nutcase could use a little show-biz color to brighten her up). Donald Sutherland has an early role as a mentally-backward assistant with a heart of gold (a clichéd role no matter who played it); Powers manages to retain her dignity despite not being able to use common sense. Hammer Production looks good but is otherwise running low on petrol. *1/2 from ****