It was inevitable Tallulah Bankhead would try her hand at the psycho biddy genre of films that had given an unexpected late career boost to Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. She really, really looks her age, and not in a great way - wrinkles added to Davis and Crawford but not Tallulah. Still, that incredible voice remains and she's got presence.
The story itself isn't much. Stefanie Powers - whom I've seen in a few movies lately and come to appreciate, she has a genuine down-home charm with high likeability factor - plays a girl who visits her ex's mother (Tallulah)... and finds herself locked up in a room by her.
Richard Matheson does a typically decent job of adaptation but Silvio Narizzano's job doesn't get all the juice out of it that say a Freddie Francis and Roger Corman might have. Donald Sutherland plays a mentally challenged handyman and Yootha Joyce is one of Bankhead's cronies. Maurice Kafumann is a damp squib as Powers' boyfriend. Some of the action is repetitive - Powers escapes, is recaptured -and it lacks the flair and character work of something like Misery but this isn't bad.
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