Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Psycho-biddy detective movies are a bricolage of many type elements and themes: gothic, Grand Guignol, black humor, psycho-drama, melodrama,
revenge, camp and even the musical. But none of these, nor their mixture, mark a particular movie as belonging to this unusual sub-genre. A psycho-biddy
movie, by its very classification, must possess a psycho-biddy: a dangerous or mentally insane woman of higher years. Often, there are two older women
pitted next to one another in a life-or-death struggle, usually the result of bitter hatreds, jealousies, or rivalries that have percolated above the course of not
years, but decades. These combatants are often blood connections and live a life of relative wealth. The psychotic nature is often brought to life in an
over-the-top, grotesque fashion, emphasizing the unglamorous procedure of aging and eventual death. Characters are often seen infatuated for lost youth
and glory, trapped by their idealized reminiscences of their childhood, or youth, and the traumas that preoccupy their past.