The Attic (1980)
Gothic Madness and Family Secrets
In a similar vein to What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, this a work of Gothic madness as Carrie Snodgress tends cranky sadistic father Ray Milland in a big old house
Grand Dame Guignol
What is variously referred to as Grand Dame Guignol, Batty Old Dames, the Psycho Biddy or Grand Old Dame film was a sub-genre of the Psycho Film that was created with What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). This featured Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, two Hollywood stars who were past their prime, in a work that made them up to look as hideous as possible, showing Bette going rafter-rattlingly over the top as she psychologically tortured a wheelchair-ridden Joan.
Both Bette and Joan received newfound fame as a result and were packaged in other similar psycho films that showed them going dementedly over-the-top. A number of other actresses past their prime were brought back in similar psycho-thrillers. The genre died out by the early 1970s, although there have been later works that could be said to belong to the genre.
The Baby (1972)
Demented Lunacy/Man with a Child's Mind
The story of a grown man with the mind of a child is launched into with a spectacularly over-the-top tackiness that has to be seen to be believed. Middle-aging Ruth Roman let all stops out in a Baby Jane-type performance
Berserk (1967)
Circus Murders
Film about a series of sensationalistic murders at a circus. Producer Herman Cohen is clearly trying to replicate the success of his Horrors of the Black Museum. Joan Crawford chews the scenery in grand style as the circus owner
Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (1981)
Psycho Stepmother
Psycho film that features Susan Tyrrell giving a totally demented performance and a plot that involves some fascinatingly twisted sexuality
Dear Dead Delilah (1972)
Grand Dame Guignol/Southern Murder Plot
A work of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? inspired Grand Dame Guignol with Agnes Moorehead as a Southern matriarch whose relatives are eliminating one another in the hunt for the family fortune
Hush (1998)
Psycho Mother-in-Law
Histrionic thriller that reminds of the various copies of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? in which pregnant Gwyneth Paltrow has evil mother-in-law Jessica Lange trying to steal her baby
Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)
Southern Gothic Psycho-Thriller
Robert Aldrich’s successor to What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? with Bette Davis on the receiving end this time. This is arguably a superior film with a tightly contorted psycho-thriller plot and a decaying Southern setting
Persecution (1974)
Psycho-Thriller
A British psycho-thriller in the Baby Jane mold with Lana Turner as a deranged mother determined to wreck son Ralph Bates’s marriage
Strait-Jacket (1964)
Psycho-Thriller
William Castle psycho-thriller made to exploit the successes of both PsychoWhat Ever Happened to Baby Jane? with an axe-wielding Joan Crawford letting all stops go
A Taste of Evil (1971)
Psycho-Thriller
TV movie psycho-thriller produced by Aaron Spelling (plus assorted Anglo-horror veterans) where heiress Barbara Parkins thinks she is going crazy. Barbara Stanwyck goes the Baby Jane route
Torn Hearts (2022)
Batty Old Dame
Rather good film featuring Married … With Children’s Katey Sagal who gives a splendidly deranged performance in the full Baby Jane mode as an aging Country and Western star
What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? (1969)
Batty Old Dames Psycho-Thriller
Robert Aldrich had massive success with What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and later produced another Grand Dame Guignol film here with Geraldine Page and Ruth Gordon playing psychological games with one another
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
Batty Old Dames Psycho-Thriller
Psycho-thriller featuring a mad Bette Davis torturing her sister Joan Crawford. This held considerable shock at the time for seeing two former glamorous Hollywood stars beyond their glory days and going nuts. The film’s success inspired a whole fad of imitators
Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1972)
Grand Old Dame Thriller
From the great and overlooked Curtis Harrington, a Grand Old Dames film with Shelley Winters going mad in the Baby Jane vein. This also becomes a modernised retelling of Hansel and Gretel