Thursday 29 September 2022

Next Lobotomy Room Film Club: Dear Dead Delilah (1972) on 20 October 2022

 


October means Halloween (or “gay Christmas” for those in the know) – which means as per tradition, this month the Lobotomy Room film club is presenting a horror movie on 20 October. And boy have we dug up an oddity for you this time! 

Nasty, grubby, gruesome but perversely captivating, low-budget exploitation slasher flick Dear Dead Delilah (1972) conveys a genuinely bizarre vibe: think Southern Gothic horror as directed by William Castle, with verbose and meandering faux Tennessee Williams-like dialogue and scenery-chewing soap opera acting punctuated by blood-splattered decapitations. In other words, Dear Dead Delilah has something for everyone! 

Filmed on location in Nashville, Tennessee, it stars that reliably fierce ne plus ultra of Golden Age Hollywood character actresses Agnes Moorehead (Endora from TV’s Bewitched) in her final appearance in the titular role of Delilah Charles, a wealthy and shrewish dying Southern matriarch confined to a motorized wheelchair. (Moorehead herself was in declining health and would die two years later aged 73).  

Firmly in the post-What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? hagsploitation tradition (although updated for the splatter-hungry drive-in circuit), Delilah calculatingly references earlier films like Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) (in that one, Moorehead had a secondary role as Bette Davis’ housekeeper. Here, she gets to play the ageing Southern belle lead) and Strait-Jacket (1964) (they share the same premise of a mentally unstable axe murderess freshly-released from an insane asylum).  When we get a glimpse of Delilah ascending in her “personal elevator”, it can’t help but recall Katharine Hepburn in Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) or Olivia de Havilland in Lady in a Cage (1964)! 

Lobotomy Room Goes to the Movies is the FREE monthly film club devoted to the cult, the kitsch and the queer! Third Thursday night of every month downstairs at Fontaine’s bar in Dalston! Two drink minimum. Inquire about the special offer £5 cocktail menu! Numbers are limited, so reserving in advance via Fontaine’s website is essential. Alternatively, phone 07718000546 or email bookings@fontaines.bar to avoid disappointment! (Any difficulties reserving, contact me on here). The film starts at 8:30 pm. Doors to the basement Bamboo Lounge open at 8:00 pm. To ensure everyone is seated and cocktails are ordered in time, please arrive by 8:15 pm at the latest.

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3 comments:

  1. ADORE Agnes Moorehead and I can't believe I've never seen this. I HAVE TO FIND IT. Wow... your description has my mouthwatering. Faux Tennessee William's dialogue alone is enough for me. I can't wait. Thanks for unearthing this one. Super excited.

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  2. This film club sounds like SO my thing. Why oh why am in Sheffield, where I don't know a soul and everyone says I'm "too much". I need to be where this sort of thing is happening!

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