Plot
On beautiful Vancouver Island, young Ellen is a live-in assistant to a wealthy, eccentric widow, and is also engaged to her employer’s stepson. Ellen’s two troubled teenaged siblings have been living in a mental institution for the past 12 years, after apparently killing their parents when they were just 6 (George) and 4 (Mandy) years old.
Now 18 and 16, the youth facility needs to release them, and the decision is made to entrust them into their elder sister’s custody. Ellen convinces her brash employer, Mrs. Armstrong, to take them into her sprawling home, but she conceals their disturbing past. Alarmed after witnessing some strange behavior on the teens’ part, the older woman becomes suspicious and confronts Ellen, who finally breaks down, revealing the truth. Frightened, Mrs. Armstrong tells Ellen the children can’t stay after all.
When Mrs. Armstrong is brutally murdered later that night, it’s unclear who was responsible…
I'm going to have to take care of them now...
Critique
6Refined psycho-triller competently directed by Bernard Girard, who skillfully maintains suspenseful pacing even as he competently juggles the characters’ ambiguous motivations, although the slick, sly screenplay – by A. Martin Zweiback (billed as A.Z. Martin) and Girard himself – certainly doesn’t put a high priority on playing fair with the viewer. The result is a dark, pessimistic work in which the shadowy abysses of the human mind constitute a bottomless pit harboring waves of psychological horror that resist any attempt at rationalization.
The female protagonists shine: on one hand we have Shelley Winters, a florid, intuitive matron. On the other hand is Stella Stevens, a girl tormented by a troubled past.
The story, based on a Reginald Denham stage play, had already been brought to the big screen by Charles Vidor with the excellent “Ladies in Retirement” (1941).
More Info
- Loosely based on the play "Ladies in Retirement" (1940) by Reginald Denham & Edward Percy
Quotes
- George and I are going to need a mad room. We need a place to think, a place to work things out.
- I'll never forget the blood on the bedsheets. Mommy's and Daddy's...
- I'm going to have to take care of them now...
Trivia
- Carol Cole (daughter of legendary singer, jazz pianist and actor Nat King Cole) played the role of Chris.
Products
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![Mad Room [DVD] [1969] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51LtOGOk0lL._AC_.jpg) | Mad Room [DVD] [1969] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC] | |
 | The Mad Room - Imprint Limited Edition Blu Ray |
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 | La Habitación Maldita DVD 1969 The Mad Room |
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