\n<\/p>\n
U<\/span>nderstandably, we tend to think of elderly women as among the most vulnerable in society, and so that means they make excellent nemeses in horror films because no one thinks that an old dear could do much damage. Unless, that is, she\u2019s got a fire poker, a house full of useful clutter, dementia and a violent streak, as is the case with Alicia, played here by the wonderful Carmen Maura, once the lead in Pedro Almod\u00f3var\u2019s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Now 80 years old, still spry as a whippet and clearly up for movie mischief, Maura gives Alicia a dirty glint in her eye as she confuses her daughter\u2019s ex-boyfriend Pedro (Daniel Hendler, showing great comic chops) with her late husband Cesar. He apparently turned Alicia on to some BDSM fun and games in their youth, and may have assisted Alicia in covering up a murder or two. Unless she\u2019s just making that part up \u2013 it\u2019s hard to tell what\u2019s true or false given her murky memory.<\/p>\n On a dark and stormy night, Pedro arrives at the insistence of his ex Laura (Agustina Liendo) to check on Alicia in the decrepit mansion where she lives alone. Laura is on a road trip with her young daughter (Emma Cetr\u00e1ngolo), but she\u2019s sensed that something\u2019s up, especially since when she called Alicia\u2019s carer, Alicia herself answered the phone. Pedro\u2019s unfortunate resemblance to Cesar gets him lashed to an armchair in chains and duct tape while Alicia quizzes him on their history, with gory results.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Argentinian director Mart\u00edn Mauregui is better known for his work as a screenwriter, but he handles this brisk, chamber piece with skill. Who knows how much producer JA Bayona, himself a dab hand as a director of thrillers and horror (The Orphanage, A Monster Calls, The Impossible), contributed to making this a polished dark comedy of family dysfunction, but we\u2019re here for the chance to appreciate Maura\u2019s impeccable timing and charismatic screen presence. It\u2019s not a deep work, but it\u2019s relentlessly fun if you\u2019re not squeamish, or indeed sentimental about animals getting killed in the opening minutes.<\/p>\n Crazy Old Lady is on Shudder and AMC+ from 27 February.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Understandably, we tend to think of elderly women as among the most vulnerable in society, and so that means they make excellent nemeses in horror films because no one thinks that an old dear could do much damage. Unless, that is, she\u2019s got a fire poker, a house full of useful clutter, dementia and a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[8595,11047,19245,23278,109,6901,23277,1394,4987,11820,1411,1085,23279],"class_list":{"0":"post-45095","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-carmen","9":"tag-crazy","10":"tag-excels","11":"tag-homicidal","12":"tag-hot","13":"tag-lady","14":"tag-maura","15":"tag-movies","16":"tag-pensioner","17":"tag-poker","18":"tag-red","19":"tag-review","20":"tag-wielding"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}