Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny & Girly (1970)

British cult flick that took a while to have a good release. Finally after 40 years it's available on DVD. It's based on an old English play about a family without a father living in a mansion seducing lonely men to bring them home to be playthings for the children. You better follow their play or girly will get angry.It was directed by British horror veteran Freddie Francis (The Evil of Frankenstein (1964) or Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968)) but still it was overlooked by the Brits even as it had a glowing review in Variety and had a limited US release. It suffered poor sales at the theaters and the distributor decided to stop promoting it. It got an extremely limited VHS release and once VHS was over it vanished into obscurity. But this flick is a perfect example that the internet could save a flick or bring it back on surface. In 2004 suddenly horror freaks copied it from VHS to DVD and a cult flick was back their on specialized sites, 6 years later it had it's official DVD release.Is it worth watching, well, it's slow but that's the nature of the time being. It is even low on red stuff and there's a lot of talking. The actors are of course all British and some made it into the scene like Pat Heywood (Nanny) moving further to 10 Rillington Place (1971) or Michael Bryant going to Ghandi (1982). Howard Trevor (Sonny) only made it in two flicks as Vanessa Howard (Girly) only acted until 1973. Typical British acting, with posh English language, clocks in over 90 minutes and did survive the time because you still want to know what is going to happen to the family.Gore 0/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 0/5 Story 3/5 Coedy 0/5

Girly (Vanessa Howard), a fetching but evil-minded schoolgirl, shares a dark hobby with her oddball household: she lures unsuspecting men to their mansion on the outskirts of London, then engages them in "games" that inevitably end in their deaths. The horrific family project runs smoothly until Girly brings home a new friend (Michael Bryant) who's operating under his own set of rules. Soon, he turns the entire household upside-down.Allegedly, "the film is a dark and playful allegory of the breakdown of the nuclear family of the 1950s as a result of the free love movement of the 1960s." How exactly this critique came about is unknown to me. I guess I didn't see any such thing in the story, but I did not personally ask the writer what his motivation was.The film was admirably handled, lead by director Freddie Francis, known for his work with Amicus and Hammer. If you're going to make a memorable British horror film, these are the studios you want and the man you want to do it.What I found interesting was the unusual use of sexual seduction: is the woman an adult or a child? Clearly, she is in her early twenties. But her mindset is that of a child. Are her seductions of a woman or a child? This ambiguity makes what could be simple a risqué sexual liaison into a potential taboo.Absolutely under-appreciated and unknown film that deserves a Renaissance. Please, please, please do yourself a favor and rent this from Netflix.

"Mumsy,Nanny,Sonny and Girly" is a dark 1969 British horror-comedy which is based on a stage play by Maisie Mosco entitled "Happy Family".The main characters of the film are the members of a wealthy British family whose names are synonymous with their roles within the family:the mother called Mumsy,the maid called Nanny,the son called Sonny and the daughter called Girly.Despite being in their twenties Sonny and Girly act like prepubescent children,dressing in British school uniforms and sleeping in giant cribs in a room full of toys.Sonny and Girly regularly seek out male loners,hobos and hippies to lure back to their house,where they are then forced to play "The Game".When the "new friends" refuse to participate they are murdered or "sent to the angels".Freddie Francis's "Girly" is a fantastic film which faded into obscurity too quickly.During a 2004 Freddie Francis film festival in England, the organizers struggled to find a VHS copy of the film to screen, but couldn't come up with one and it was briefly thought to be lost to the public,until copies began to surface on the internet in 2004.The acting is solid and there is enough creepy moments to satisfy any self-respecting horror fan.8 out of 10.

I saw this film in the theaters when I was a kid of 15 or 16 or so, and I remember that my friends and I just loved making one another laugh by quoting from it.And if you're a kid of 15 or 16, I think you'll like this silly film for exactly the same reasons I did when I was that age.However, it's a very, very dopey little movie, and while I think I'd like to see it again, just to see if there WAS anything to it, back then, I seriously doubt that there was anything substantial to it.Still--there's a place for guilty pleasures on anybody's movie shelf, and I can think of far worse things you might include on your list of guilty pleasures.It's junk-food, though--and I think even WE knew that, when our gang of noisy teenagers decided to go see it, all those many years ago...good for nyuk-nyuk-nyuk laughter and acting out scenes from it for hilarity later on...but nothing more.