Ghouls on Film

Kiddies Beware! The Grannies Are Here

“Legion” came out last weekend and I didn’t see it even though I have a soft spot for the classic lines of Paul Bettany’s face. Not surprisingly, angels battling each other on earth didn’t make much of an impression on the general viewing public, no matter how much latex they wore or how many guns they shot – not even that crabby-armed ice cream truck driving one.

But one thing that did strike me, from the never ending previews I saw during movies for guys (and me) who like movies, was the diner scene where the spider monkey granny climbs the ceiling. Her name in the film is Gladys Foster, a fitting name for an evil older lady, and she is played by Jeannette Miller.

Miss Gladys Foster (this grandma’s a spinster no doubt about it) follows in a grand film tradition of matronly old women gone bad.  These films exploit society’s distaste for women who have gotten on in years, villainizing their good natured kvetching. They shine a light on the deep dark secrets your grandmother has been hiding in her handbag for far longer than the Werther’s Originals she uses to tempt unsuspecting children.  This makes sense of course, we’ve been read stories since we were babies about malicious matrons who want to cook us and eat us. Gladys Foster is the Wicked Witch, the Baba Yaga in our modern fairy tale.

I’ve put together a list of my favorite evil grannies. The ones who wear their blue perms with pride, who I can’t seem forget and still cause a shiver to run through me each time I pass an old folks home.

Victoria and Elizabeth, “Rabid Grannies” – I can remember going to my video store in New Milford Connecticut (Video World, I think?) and staring and at the box for this movie. It was right next to “Frankenweenie” and I was equally enamored with both boxes, but for much different reasons. The tag lines “They love their grandchildren … well done!” and  “Grandma, what a big mouth you have!” pretty much sum up the plot of the film. Since I didn’t know a whole love about Troma films I wasn’t completely ready for the amount of gore I would face while these grandmothers loved their families to death.
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Olivia, “Flowers in the Attic” – How many of you out there had a hard time accepting a cookie with powdered sugar on it after watching this movie? Raise your hands! And forget about getting a haircut from your grandmother. Better yet, just don’t take a bath in her house.

Mum, “Dead Alive” - Technically Vera Cosgrove isn’t a grandmother. But she has a grown son, Lionel, who is planning to marry and she is of grandmothering age. Which makes it all the more disturbing when her huge bloated zombie corpse gives birth to her son Lionel again.

Sylvia Ganush, “Drag Me to Hell” – Remember that clean hanky that your grandmother always kept in her bag? Well, it’s not so clean in this movie, and it wants to do more than wipe the dirt off of Christine Brown’s face. In fact it would like nothing better than to blind her and choke her to death. But if it can’t have that, it will settle for making her life a living Hell. Literally a Hell on earth. For real. I mean that literally. Until she is, well … actually in Hell.

Ma, “American Gothic” - For those of you who are unfamiliar with the works of the lovely Yvonne De Carlo, I will direct you to the blog post below. If only Grant Wood’s famous painting had been based on this movie, art history would be so much more fun. Ma has no time for visitors who don’t clean their plates and she’s very forthcoming with punishments for bad manners. But she does love to mother her “kids” who still live at home.

Granny, “The Granny” -  You might remember Stella Stevens opposite Elvis in “Girls, Girls, Girls” or in “The Nutty Professor” with Jerry Lewis. But neither of these roles begins to compare to the part she played in “The Granny.” The wig (I hope), the lips, the cat … it’s beyond words. You just have to watch.

Who is your favorite gruesome grandmother?

Note to readers: Think twice before doing a google search of “bad grannies” because it might bring up some imagery you aren’t ready to see or maybe you are ready to see it. I don’t know your life.