XoWizIama Excellent adaptation.

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Spikeopath Fanatic (AKA: Die! Die! My Darling! is directed by Silvio Narizzano and adapted to screenplay by Richard Matheson from the novel "Nightmare" written by Anne Blaisdell. It stars Tallulah Bankhead, Stefanie Powers, Peter Vaughan, Yootha Joyce, Donald Sutherland and Maurice Kaufmann. Music is by Wilfred Josephs and cinematography by Arthur Ibbetson.Pat Carroll (Powers) decides to make a courtesy call on Mrs. Trefoile (Bankhead), the mother of the man she was courting seriously before his untimely death in an automobile accident. Her good intentions are not exactly welcomed with open arms, in fact Pat finds herself spun into a vortex of religious fanaticism and maternal madness.Psycho-Biddy sub-genre meets Hammer Film's one word titled series of Psycho inspired thrillers, Fanatic is a thoroughly bonkers movie. Not in that it doesn't make sense or it is complex supreme, it's that it operates in some campy feverish world, a place where Baby Jane rests in peace. Unfortunately it's not as good as the other films that make up this wickedly entertaining sub-genre of horror.That it's amazingly riveting is due to a bunch of cast performances that have to be seen to be believed. For even as the film meanders, where the makers repeatedly fall back on Pat Carroll's predicament with boorish time filling sequences, there's something enigmatically joyous about Bankhead and the crew making merry hell in this Hammeresque carnival of horrors.Legend has it that Bankhead was permanently sozzled throughout the production, it matters not, always a tough old dame who never suffered fools gladly, it's a bravura performance that's rich with the excessiveness that the story demands. Joyce and Vaughan would become legends of situation comedies in Britain, but here they get to play seriously stern and creepy lecher respectively, with the latter tasked with waving his shotgun around as an unsubtle phallic erection!Sutherland is woeful, but again it matters not, and it's actually not his fault, the character as written is a village idiot, a wet pants of a man purely in the story to fulfil the freak show quotient. Then there is the darling Powers, so young, sexy and vibrant, she escapes criticism because her performance is so measured it deflects from the preposterousness of it all.Lipstick is banned, sex is banned, the colour red is banned and Religio Guignol is the order of the day. It's a film hard to recommend with any sort of confidence, but it's just nutty enough to make it worth seeking out as a curio piece. 6/10

LeonLouisRicci Not without a couple of Flaws, this is Nevertheless a Solid Entry into the Hag Horror Wave that Embellished the 1960's. Hammer's Horror here is a 'Real Life" Fanatic (alternate Title) of the no Less than Scary Antagonist as Opposed to a Monster or Vampire, those Religious Types that are so Evident Today.The Always Dependable Richard Matheson Penned this Script and Tallulah Bankhead gives Her Final Curtain Call as a Craggy Character with a Performance that will not be Denied. She Dominates the Screen with an Acting Style that befits this Mother-In-Law From Hell. That is to say Completely Out to Lunch, Gone Fishing, Toys in the Attic.But it is in the Cellar that the most Expressionistic, Colorful Confrontations Appear like Monstrous Memories of Unwanted, Underground, Beneath the Surface, Repressed Guilt. It is there that Hammer's Trademark Style is the most Evident and Effective.The aforementioned Flaws are a Pre-Woman's Liberation Suspension of Disbelief that allows Stefanie Powers no Power to Overcome such a Sickly Tormentor and the Ridiculously Silly Comedic Music used over the Opening Titles and in a few Scenes that feels Jarringly out of Place.

lastliberal This Hammer classic has been renamed to Fanatic. Maybe to capitalize on the fanatic in The Mist. I haven't see that one, but Mrs. Trefoile was bad enough.Played by Tallulah Bankhead, who I last saw in Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat, Mrs. Trefoile was a scary hag that lost her son and blamed his fiancé, Pat, played by Stefanie Powers, known most notable for the TV series "Hart to Hart." Mrs. Trefoile kept Pat locked up so she could "convert" her to be worthy of her son.Peter Vaughan, an actor with a hellacious amount of credits (173), was really funny as he kept trying to get into Power's pants. Don't blame him for trying, but the hag kept interrupting.One minor character of note was Donald Sutherland in his fourth or fifth movie.Great horror from the House of Hammer.

moonspinner55 Religious zealots and well-meaning people held captive against their will are my two least-favorite subjects for movie material, and here they're combined for a really queasy effect. The plot, based on Anne Blaisdell's book "Nightmare", is somewhat helped along by frisky bits of levity dotting the scenario, but not by the general hysteria which is inherent in the film's U.S. title, "Die! Die! My Darling!". Tallulah Bankhead plays the Bible-thumping, embittered mother of a dead man whose prospective daughter-in-law (Stefanie Powers) pays her a social call. I don't see how keeping this girl captive in the rambling estate would bring Tallulah any satisfaction, and Powers' helplessness does nothing for her--nor for the viewer, who is also held prisoner (it's the Idiot Plot Syndrome: if she acted smartly and got away, there would be no movie). Richard Matheson's script had promise, but he's facetious instead of cunning, and moments such as Bankhead revealing she was once an actress on the stage are nothing more than campy prodding (and it backfires since Tallulah's nutcase could use a little show-biz color to brighten her up). Donald Sutherland has an early role as a mentally-backward assistant with a heart of gold (a clichéd role no matter who played it); Powers manages to retain her dignity despite not being able to use common sense. Hammer Production looks good but is otherwise running low on petrol. *1/2 from ****