Curtis Harrington

  • Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1972)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) Another entry in the overly-long-titled psycho-biddy thriller subgenre of the late 1960s and early 1970s, latecomer entry Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? features no less than Shelley Winters as a rich demented American heiress living in a spooky English mansion, the plot borrowing a lot from Hansel and Gretel. A lot. The effect is more comforting than disquieting—at least for those psycho-biddy thriller fans used to the worst and expecting as much. There’s an innate silliness to the result that makes it approach a comedy at times, with Winters being a touch too convincing at playing psychopathic biddies. Director Curtis Harrington has some fun playing with audience loyalties and delving into the gothic possibilities of his sets. Arguably best positioned as late-night entertainment, Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? may not be all that good, but it is good fun.

  • Games (1967)

    Games (1967)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2021) I had a momentarily double take in looking at Games’ TV log entry — talking about a 1967ish film featuring “A young couple who are into kinky mind games,” screams Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? to me, but as a viewing attests, there’s a gulf of difference between the two movies: Games is a pure genre thriller, occasionally silly and ultimately quite glum. It does feature a couple into mind games (first shown as party tricks) but slowly sinks into a tangled web of deception and murder. Simone Signoret is the film’s most remarkable asset as a mysterious older woman who turns the tables on the couple, even if said couple is played by none other than Katharine Ross and a surprisingly young James Caan. For noted iconoclast director Curtis Harrington, Games is about as close to mainstream stuff as he did — there’s a pleasant lunacy to the overlapping plots that come to dominate the film, but it’s executed in relatively straightforward fashion for a twisty thriller. The colourful cinematography is very much of tis time, and now gives an interesting period patina to the result. You can slot Games squarely in the “solid movie” category — not a masterpiece nor particularly memorable, but well-made and entertaining enough to make up an evening’s entertainment.