HoopTober 8: Mosquito Takes Mandragon

Movie 64
4th of 4 Hammer films

In my recent review for The Raven (1963), I complimented it on its ability to extract some kind of compelling feature plot from such thin source material, but completely forgot to mention that the adapter was one Richard Matheson - which kind of explains everything. In Fanatic, one of Hammer’s relatively few psychological thrillers, he turns up again as the screenwriter. Matheson is one of those guys whose name attached to anything is generally good news, and this film is no exception.

Hammer did try a number of times to break free from their outrageously successful gothic horror style – they knew diversifying their output was key to their ongoing survival, even as they never managed to crack it and so eventually went the way of the dodo when horror films like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre suddenly made them look a bit antiquated and silly to contemporary audiences. Fanatic is one such example and, unlike some other psychological thrillers where an unmistakable thread of Hammer’s personality remained, this one feels nothing like a Hammer film at all. Which is odd, because it actually has some gothic elements, but in this case the inspiration is definitely southern gothic – in fact, I would argue this is a southern gothic melodrama set in the English home counties.

One of the most notable assets of the film is its outstanding cast and especially notable is the fact that we get three lead roles played by women. Stephanie Powers brings great charm as our protagonist – the well-meaning young fiancée who decides to visit the mother of her (now dead) ex-boyfriend to pay her respects before getting married to her new man – a fact she feels expedient not to mention, for obvious reasons. But it’s Tallulah Bankhead who owns the film, as she should in the showcase role of Mrs Trefoile, who turns out to be a religious fanatic with possibly psychotic tendencies. Bankhead is outstanding – even managing to balance some warmth alongside the apprehension in their early interactions, just about enough for us to countenance the possibility that Stephanie might not immediately drive the fuck away from there as soon as she clocks how weird this household is.

And then we get Yootha Joyce – famous for playing the long-suffering Mildred Roper in the 70’s British sit-com George and Mildred - as Anna, the sullen housemaid with hidden depths. Besides being a schemer, she also suffers through an abusive marriage to the monstrous Harry – Mrs Trefoile’s other servant – played by a never-better Peter Vaughan, who is by turns obsequious and terrifyingly rapey – a genuinely skin-crawling performance. Joyce brings enormous depth to this pulpy role, injecting a vein of deep pathos into her own profoundly compromised character.

Canadian director Silvio Narizzano never seemed to kick on to much bigger or better things, but he seems more than a steady hand here. The set-bound production is beautifully evoked and the cast and script do the rest. The plot does strain credibility at times, but all is forgiven when we enter the surprisingly dark second and third acts. In the last few sequences, we descend to the house’s lower levels and suddenly find ourselves in something like a Corman Poe film, with supremely gothic imagery and liberal use of coloured gels in the lighting – it looks amazing. My only real issue is with Wilfred Josephs’ score for the film, which seems epically misjudged to me. Fault for that probably goes to Narizzano for even commissioning something that sounds so much like a quirky 60’s comedy when this is in fact quite a grim and frightening film. The music often undermines the terror of the characters – and even though there is black comedy aplenty here, that’s not the right soundtrack for it. It’s a real mis-step and a bit of a shame, really.

But this was still a surprisingly strong suspense thriller for me, and I wonder why this didn’t become more of a “thing” for Hammer. Maybe it didn’t make much box office. But this one comes pretty highly recommended!