This understated psychological thriller is unlike any other film you will see. It's a film that ranks high in originality, and the horror comes from the human madness on display here. Indeed, it's a film that focuses on insanity, and puts it across in a matter-of-fact way, which is quite unsettling and succeeds in making the viewer also feel mad while watching. This is the kind of low budget drama which the British did so well, creating a powerful film solely via the script and performances of the players. There are no special effects here to distract you, there's no gore either. The lack of these typical components give this film a closer edge to reality and really gets you hooked up in the action.

There are four deeply disturbed individuals in this film: two children, a mother, and a nanny. The mother is perhaps the sickest of the four. She's a woman who has presumably (there are no explanations here) ruled her children's lives strictly since they were born. She has warped views on life, and is obsessed by her own set of "rules" which everybody must abide by. She literally takes the typical family ideals too far. The actress playing her, Ursula Howells, may be familiar as the werewolf woman from DR TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS, and is excellent. Nanny is the most unimportant member of the family, and her role is to simply look after the other three. Despite always following Mumsy's orders, she is secretly envious of her employer and when the newcomer arrives on the scene, sexual jealousy of the mother becomes apparent. Nanny is pretty sick, and in one sequence she almost murders someone by suffocation.

The two children of the family actually look to be in their early twenties, yet still live the lives of innocent children - they haven't grown up at all, instead stuck forever as ten year olds. Sonny has a cruel streak in him, and takes his childhood games too far.He also enjoys filming his playmates in some weird PEEPING TOM-style fetish. Girly is the most feisty of the group, a virgin with a high sexual appetite, and her relationship with the newcomer is the catalyst for all the events which later occur. She is played to the hilt by Vanessa Howard, who is excellent and believable. As the other main member of the cast, Michael Bryant is very good as the sane man caught up in the chaos. He is effectively the prisoner in a nightmare world, his life alternating between plotting escapes, playing a child, ravishing Girly, and being shocked at the activities of the family. Michael Ripper also pops up in a typical cameo appearance as a zoo keeper.

Fans of understated, slow-moving yet highly disturbing character studies will really enjoy this film, which is directed with a firm hand by genre stalwart Freddie Francis. Some parts are very tense, while others are genuinely frightening and disturbing too. A neglected exercise in madness.

Freddie Francis's "Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly" (released as "Girly" in North America) has a neat premise and some fun scenes but is mostly too weird to be generally appealing. It's about a group of people pretending to be a family so that they can lure men to their house and force them to participate in the game.

Early in the movie the "mother" mentions breakfast and calls it "brecky". I remember that in "Yellow Submarine" one of the Beatles uses that word. Here that's the best line. There are some other good parts but overall I wouldn't recommend the movie.

PS: Pat Heywood, who plays the "nanny", played the nurse in Franco Zefferelli's "Romeo and Juliet".

Girly (Vanessa Howard),a fetching but evil-minded schoolgirl, shares a dark hobby with her oddball household: she lures unsuspecting men to their mansion on the outskirts of London, then engages them in "games" that inevitably end in their deaths. The horrific family project runs smoothly until Girly brings home a new friend (Michael Bryant) who's operating under his own set of rules. Soon, he turns the entire household upside-down.

Allegedly, "the film is a dark and playful allegory of the breakdown of the nuclear family of the 1950s as a result of the free love movement of the 1960s." How exactly this critique came about is unknown to me. I guess I didn't see any such thing in the story, but I did not personally ask the writer what his motivation was.

The film was admirably handled, lead by director Freddie Francis, known for his work with Amicus and Hammer. If you're going to make a memorable British horror film, these are the studios you want and the man you want to do it.

What I found interesting was the unusual use of sexual seduction: is the woman an adult or a child? Clearly, she is in her early twenties. But her mindset is that of a child. Are her seductions of a woman or a child? This ambiguity makes what could be simple a risqué sexual liaison into a potential taboo.

Absolutely under-appreciated and unknown film that deserves a Renaissance. Please, please, please do yourself a favor and rent this from Netflix.