MUMSY, NANNY, SONNY AND GIRLY
dir. Freddie Francis. 1970.
United Kingdom. 102 mins.
In English.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 1 - 10 PM
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10 - 11:59 PM
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 20 - 10 PM
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30 - 10 PM

Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly kidnap men and dub them their new friends. These new friends are forced to participate in an elaborate role-playing game, and if they refuse, they are put on trial and “sent to the angels.”

An oddity in the killer kids subgenre, MUMSY, NANNY, SONNY AND GIRLY, deals with young adults role-playing as children. The film is tonally and thematically similar to Jack Hill’s SPIDER BABY (1967), asphyxiating the audience in an unrelenting nightmare of madness and anxiety.

Director Freddy Francis was inspired to write MUMSY, NANNY, SONNY AND GIRLY after visiting the famous Hammer Horror filming location Oakley Court. Francis shot the exteriors of Oakley Court for the film but wished he could have showcased the interiors.

Upon release, MUMSY, NANNY, SONNY AND GIRLY sparked a moral panic in the UK. The press misinterpreted the film as having incestuous undertones, which led theaters to refuse to show it. Luckily, producers rebranded the film as GIRLY and sold it to a US market with moderate success.