CineBad!!!

Hm. As Scooter asked me while watching this film, “so, was Bette Davis ever young?” I think maybe she was… like in the nineteen-twenties. Bette stars as– what? a creepy old lady?! No way!!!

OK, the main players here include:

Nanny, the creepy old lady who moves around robotically and refuses to inflect no matter how upset she gets. Bette’s voice in the movie kind of reminded me of the Texas Instruments TI99/4A, a talking computer that I thought was way cool when I was in third grade.

Joey, a troubled youth. He’s been sent away to live at a school for toffee-nosed little British snotheads somewhere in the country. He gets to yell at things a lot. Joey hates the Nanny, which causes much hand-wringing and looks of staunch British shock from his family.

Susy, a dead baby.

Virgie, (?! Is her middle name Mary?) the mom. She doesn’t know why, but she’s absolutely dreading Joey’s return from boarding school. Every fiber of her being is chock full of dread and misgiving. She simply can’t accompany her husband to the school to pick him up. “I caaaahn’t!” she wails. “I caaahn’t I caaahn’t I caaaaaaaaaaaahn’t!”

and Aunt Pet, (She has a sister named Vic and another named CBM) Virgie’s hypochondriac sister with a heart condition, who lives in perpetual threat of sudden, plot-twisting expiration.

So back to Susy, the dead baby. She drowned in her bathwater some time ago for mysterious reasons. (She had to die– she was too cute!) Everyone thinks that Joey accidentally pushed her into the bath, which is why he has such a chip on his shoulder. But we know better! Why does Joey refuse to eat anything that Nanny prepares for him? Why does he bolt the door whenever he takes a bath? Why does Virgie suddenly become ill on the night that Joey’s dad is called away unexpectedly to business in India? Why are all the members of Joey’s family so hideously unattractive? Only Joey knows the secrets!

But who could suspect poor old lovable Nanny, with her fake English accent, of so heinous a crime? After all, she was also Pet and Virgie’s dear old Nanny before she was Joey’s. And with those rosy cheeks and darling sunken eyes… she’s the very model of innocence!

I won’t give away the surprise ending! I caaaaaahn’t! In fact, I’m still not clear as to whether there was an ending… the film did end, I remember that. This is one that will tax the limits of your imagination!