So I knew a great deal about the film without every seeing it. I had read about the film quite a bit and was familiar with Carol Burnett's funny deranged riffs on the Norma Desmond character (with Harvey Korman as "MAAAAAAXXXX!!!!") I also purchased the soundtrack to the Glenn Close musical (I really liked the song "With One Look"). What a great movie! I think I finally rented it when I was in my 30's. Aka: hagsploitation, hag-horror, or the psycho-biddy movie. In its inability to imagine a fate more terrifying than aging for a woman, Hollywood channeled its misogyny and fear of "La femme vieillissante" into the creation of an entirely new horror genre - The Grande Dame Guignol. Only the "monster" in this instance is usually a middle-aged woman who behaves violently or becomes unhinged after suffering some kind of emotional breakdown or traumatizing social outcast rebuff (imagine Stephen King's Carrie for the AARP set). Recognizable by their formula mix of deglamorization + histrionics + gerontophobia with a dash of kitsch and camp thrown in, their plots tended to be baroque variations on familiar monster movie tropes. Grande Dame Guignol (or hagsploitation) are sensationalistic melodramas and horror thrillers centered around older actresses in roles that exploit or exaggeratedly play off the star's declined status and advanced age (by Hollywood standards, mind you, which is simply over 30) contrasted with their often over-the-top, prima donna behavior.
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