Persecution [AKA The Graveyard AKA Sheba AKA The Terror of Sheba AKA I Hate You, Cat] (1974), dir. Don Chaffey
I am not sure if Lana Turner would have been happy about me celebrating her with a movie like Persecution (AKA The Graveyard AKA Sheba AKA The Terror of Sheba AKA I Hate You, Cat). While she might not be remembered as a psycho-biddy icon the way Bette Davis or Joan Crawford are, but this movie is essentially her venture into the „genre”.
Lana plays a role that is basically a „crazy cat lady” who checks out all the boxes of a hagsploitation icon – she is old and crippled, rich, weirdly obsessed with, and abusive towards, her son… And she loves cats! She spends pretty much the entire movie plotting and scheming and causing harm.
I love psycho-biddy movies and all the adjacent movies, last year during Summer Under the Stars I watched Tam Lin with Ava Gardner and it ended up being one of my favourite films I watched all month. Sadly, Persecution (AKA The Graveyard AKA Sheba AKA The Terror of Sheba AKA I Hate You, Cat) was just not that great. Maybe I was just not in the mood, or maybe I do not enjoy watching Lana Turner in bad movies because I have always thought of her as quite a tragic and wounded figure and it is almost sad. With other actresses, I can usually kind of feel them owning the situation, not with Lana.
I still do not hate it, 70s made-for-TV-like thrillers are always alright in my book. I just wish this was something I could get obsessed with.
Swingin' at the Seance 