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Part of the A Nightmare on Franklin Street 2026 series**********************************************************
Note: This film will be shown in the Taylor Screening Room.
1h 33m / Not Rated / Horror, Thriller
Lucy Harbin (Joan Crawford) has just spent 20 years in a mental institution after the axe murders of her husband and his lover, which was unfortunately witnessed by her young daughter Carol. She moves in with her brother after her release and is reunited with Carol, who tries to have a relationship with her mother, but Lucy is still tormented by visions of her violent act. As horrible tragedies begin to pile up at her new home, the question arises: is it possible to really escape such a nightmarish past?
The wave of (affectionately) trashy horror starring big-name actresses in the last half of their careers that really took off after the success of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? sometimes gets called “psycho-biddy” or “hagsploitation.” Shame the names are so rude and disrespectful, because they get at something real about the genre, which relies on the arch, over-weening air of a fading grand dame to generate comic relief not through clownishness but camp, the ironic internal frisson of a big actor making big choices recontextualized out of big dramas and into little horror features. But the big launch from Baby Jane also relied on the specific tension of Crawford and Bette Davis; Strait-Jacket was Crawford’s followup, and Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte was Davis’s (until the much later Burnt Offerings). The movie business figured out that both titanically important actresses still had something to offer film, and they each figured out that they had something to offer horror. We’re all lucky they did.
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A Nightmare on Franklin Street series is presented by Bank of America. View the full series at https://tampatheatre.org/nightmare
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Event venue
Tampa Theatre, 707 N Franklin St, Tampa, FL 33602-4400, United States
Tickets
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