Curator Watchlist
A stylish, melodramatic Southern Gothic thriller with real atmosphere, sharp star power, and a deliciously lurid sense of decay. It’s more camp-tinged psychological horror than outright scares, but the performances and haunted-house mood make it memorable.
Where to watch: Buy
Wed · 2h 13m
Director: Robert Aldrich
Starring: Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Joseph Cotten
An aging, reclusive Southern belle plagued by a horrifying family secret descends into madness after the arrival of a lost relative.
Robert Aldrich
Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Joseph Cotten
A stylish, melodramatic Southern Gothic thriller with real atmosphere, sharp star power, and a deliciously lurid sense of decay. It’s more camp-tinged psychological horror than outright scares, but the performances and haunted-house mood make it memorable.
Robert Aldrich turns a family scandal into a feverish Southern Gothic nightmare, draping the story in rot, guilt, and old-money decay. The film leans hard into atmosphere: shadowy interiors, oppressive heat, and a mansion that feels like it’s slowly swallowing everyone inside it.
Bette Davis is the main attraction, playing Charlotte with a volatile mix of vulnerability, vanity, and hysteria. Olivia de Havilland gives the movie a colder, more controlled menace, which makes the confrontations snap. The result is less a tidy mystery than a grand, overheated battle of wills, and that’s exactly why it works.
It doesn’t have the same precision or shock value as the best prestige horrors of the era, but it has a stronger sense of mood than most studio thrillers. If you like your horror with Southern Gothic perfume, old-Hollywood venom, and a little camp around the edges, this is a rewarding watch.
Sara Clements (4★) · 579 likes
I love how the budget was so low they didn’t bother to cast anyone as teenage Charlotte so they just hid Bette’s face with shadows, but they didn't add a voiceover so she sounds like a 17-year-old who’s smoked a lifetime of cigarettes.
M3L0DY (4★) · 384 likes
Bette Davis: *screaming* Olivia de Havilland: *growling* Agnes Moorehead: *white trash gibberish* Joseph Cotten: *thirsts for the pussy* Me: Talented, brilliant, amazing, show-stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique
Ian West (4★) · 205 likes
Brooding Southern Gothic cleaver mayhem. Over the top, slow atmospheric 60’s Grand Guignol hysteria at its finest with an absolutely incredible cast of names that span decades of immeasurable talent... and a behind the scenes story of Hollywood lore equally as fascinating. Essential Aldrich.
Rafael "Mister Movie" Jovine (4★) · 184 likes
Action! - The Postwar Hollywood 3: Reworking Aldrich Envisioned as a follow-up to Baby Jane, it’s a film that very much feels like a spiritual sequel in about every regard except much of the setting and the dynamic and relationship between the characters. But certainly, a lot of what I highlighted and admired in the last film is also true here. Biroc's Oscar-nominated cinematography is stunning, doing a tremendous job of setting the tone and building this incredible haunting and… more
Anna🍓 (4★) · 158 likes
Thank god for conveniently placed comically oversized plant pots 😮💨 This is arguably the scariest I’ve ever seen Olivia De Havilland… while it doesn’t pack the same punch as Whatever Happened to Baby Jane it still does have a lot going for it. The opening scene and credits sequence will be ingrained in my memory for a good long while.
The closest tonal companion: star-driven, vicious, theatrical, and gleefully unhinged.
For another classic of oppressive atmosphere, psychological unease, and a house that feels alive.
Elegant gothic dread with ambiguity, repression, and a steadily tightening sense of doom.
Southern heat, emotional collapse, and a similarly feverish mid-60s melodramatic intensity.
If the appeal is stylish suspense and creeping hysteria, this delivers in a different key.
A landmark of psychological horror that pairs beautifully with this era’s fascination with fractured identity.
A classic of shadowy suspense, domestic menace, and gothic vulnerability.
For gaslighting, paranoia, and a woman being psychologically cornered in a claustrophobic home.
A foundational gothic mystery built on memory, inheritance, and a house haunted by the past.
For poisonous class dynamics, psychological manipulation, and elegant moral rot.
Southern decay, family secrets, and a lushly overheated sense of repression and scandal.
A moody haunted-house story with old-world melancholy and a strong sense of place.
Southern Gothic, family secrets, madness, decay, inheritance, guilt, class tension, female rivalry
Southern Gothic, camp, psychological thriller, 1960s horror, decaying mansion, family curse, melodrama, old Hollywood, atmospheric, mystery