A wealthy, fatherless British clan kidnaps bums and hippies and forces them to participate in an elaborate role-playing game in which they are the perfect family; those who refuse or attempt escape are ritualistically murdered.
Girly, 和谐家庭, Мамочка, нянечка, сыночек и доченька
USAR
UK
UK
USA
This is quite literally my dream job
Pls hire me, my aesthetics include:
zoos
dolls
sweeties
dark academia
teacakes
brownie cameras
peter pan collars
skills:
1. making new friends in the park
2. can name at least three creepy British horror movies including the oranges and lemons children’s rhyme (NOT COUNTING 1984)!!!
3. Rigid adherence to rules I have made up like: no alcohol except on Friday, no sleeping past twelve thirty for any reason ever, reading from four until six ish three movies a night EXCEPT on Wednesdays, where I watch four, even if I have to stay up until four in the morning, enacting the can sleep up UNTIL twelve thirty ….
4. Orphaned at the tender age of 38, sort of
Pick me! Pick me!!
Take your crazy murderous family but make it extremely British and you get this masterpiece! The way Girly shifts from acting like a little girl into full blown psychopath gave me the tingles. Tea times, rhyming slangy dialogue and sending people "to the angels". It's Rob Zombie does Mary Poppins and I love it.
Friend 2 played the situation amazingly, but I wish the film had taken it to a complete ending instead of just stopping like it did.
26/31
I really like the style of "adult children" exploitation. Films like American Gothic, Toys Are Not For Children, Spider Baby, The Baby, and of course Girly. I prefer the title Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny, and Girly but so I don't have to write that out every time I'm just going to refer to it as Girly. This has some V.C Andrews levels of drama and creepiness, like I really liked this film. It's strange, wild, funny at times, and has really entertaining performances. It's not bloody or gory or anything but it provides a lot of spooky fun gothic atmosphere. I'm going to make this a shorter review than usual but just know I loved this film
November Horror 2020, Day 20, challenge #10 - the 70s
More good stuff from Freddie Francis, in an "I Can't Believe It's Not Hammer" production. Crazy family in a decaying mansion decorated like a Scooby Doo haunted house? Hell yes! Not to mention the most delightful credit I have ever seen in a movie, "Wardrobe Mistress Dulcie Midwinter." Just the name makes me feel cosy! The wardrobe was fabulous too, especially Girly's, so you nailed it Dulcie! (She also did Blood on Satan's Claw and Daughters of Darkness so she's extra fab.)
This is a weird, twisted movie but in a very polite, British teatime sort of way. I dug it, but it's really elevated by Vanessa Howard's beautifully unhinged…
A crazy family kidnaps people and forces them to play strange games in their secluded mansion. If these new "friends" refuse to play or try to escape, the "happy family" sends them on their way "to the angels". Creepy and very odd, in a good way, and feels like a British take on Spider Baby.
"Nasty Nanny is no good,
Chop her up for fire wood!
When she's dead, boil her head,
make it into gingerbread!"
Freddie Francis' weird mix of black comedy, psychosexual roleplay and British horror is a pretty fun movie with some pretty memorable characters (such as all the ones in the title) and performances. It's been compared to both Jack Hill's 'Spider Baby' and Rob Zombie films, both of which is fitting, but I also found it has an element of Pete Walker's 'House of Whipcord' (though not as sleazy or mean-spirited) and Clint Eastwood's 'The Beguiled' with a man trapped in a house dominated by women and trying his best to survive by sleeping with all of them.
While I really enjoyed most of this, it does go on a little too long at times and something is missing for true greatness.
Still an intriuging and sort of fucked up little family movie.
I really do like a mental family . So crazy, so happy. British black comedy here.
When Nanny got excited about the Humpty Dumpty game' I got a shiver. Nasty Nanny is no good, chop her up for firewood.
Maybe my favorite Freddie Francis directed film so far. A bizarre mix of dark humor and brutality with a reclusive family of wealthy sickos kidnapping drunks and vagrants to be part of their "family"; so long as they follow the rules. And if they don't they get to play THE GAME. And let's just say they don't usually win. Things get shaken up with one of their new friends as he attempts to maneuver his way in and out of trouble. If it was made today it would absolutely be a Yorgos Lanthimos picture. The tone does have these odd lofty, light moments that sometimes cut against it until they don't. It becomes a clever disarming device before a darker reveal or execution.
