For Meat Lovers Only

I can't remember what made me seek out the Netflix Very Long Wait disc of Frightmare, other than, perhaps, the fact that this somewhat hard to find film WAS a Very Long Wait on Netflix. 

We covet what is just out of reach.

Quick Plot: A black-and-white prologue introduces us to Dorothy and Edmund, a married couple so in love that he fakes insanity to share her asylum sentence after she's caught killing and eating people. 

And you thought your parents were crazy.

Some years later, Edmund's eldest daughter Jackie is a grown woman attempting to care for her half-sister Debbie, a wild 15-year-old who might have inherited her mother (and Jackie's stepmother)'s taste for human flesh. Across the countryside, Edmund and Dorothy have been released to spend their golden years in complete sanity and peace.

Righhhhhhhhhhhht.

Poor put upon Jackie learns the hard way that blended families can be cruel. As her psychologist boyfriend investigates her past, Jackie begins to suspect--pretty rightly--that Dorothy might not have been quite as cured as the hospital administration seemed to think. Using her skills as a tarot card reader, Dorothy begins luring new meals into her secluded home. 

You have to give it to the old broad: you can never be wrong telling someone's fortune if you're pretty certain the reading will end with you eating them.

Directed by Peter Walker, Frightmare is a fun if minor little horror film. As the wickedly murderous clairvoyant carnivore, Sheila Keats makes quite a special villain. Her buggy eyes,  cackling voice, and extreme enthusiasm for, you know, eating people is the kind of thing that makes any movie a little more fun. 

Other than that, Frightmare is fairly uneventful. There’s a nicely timed ambiguous ending, a few good axings, and most notably, an old lady eating people. 

It is quite simple to please me.

High Points

I'm a sucker for any film with an aggressively discordant score, and for that, Frightmare suits me just fine

Low Points

Perhaps I've been watching too much Season 5 of Buffy as of late, but MAN does this 15-year-old brat get under my skin

Lessons Learned

Being in an asylum for 15 years MUST cure you

It takes two to tarot 

Orphanage, convent, it's really all the same

Rent/Bury/Buy

Frightmare isn't necessarily worth its 'Long Wait' status on Netflix, but it was a fun enough little watch that will easily entertain those who enjoy British horror with a sense of humor. If it's in the cards, check it out. Otherwise, Killer's Moon is still streaming...