Mafu Cage (1978)

[Clownbaby]

I was gonna stay in a sulk and not post anything but anyone seen this film? I found it for 50p in a charity shop renamed "Don't Ring The Doorbell" presumably to make it sound more like your average Poundland repackaged low budget horror movie and I didn't have any expectations when I saw the plain white disk design but did not expect what I got.

The sound quality was very bad and it wasn't remastered at all so it was too dark to see at some points and I missed the odd bit of dialogue, but there was something about it that really gave me the heeby jeebies, and I can count films that actually unsettle me on one hand.

There's 2 sisters, Ellen and Cissy. Ellen looks after Cissy, who is generally just a completely broken, very upsettingly mentally ill lass who is obsessed with Africa and rarely leaves the house of their dead father which is ghoulishly decorated with jungle foliage and African masks to indulge Cissy's regression into her childhood spent in Africa. Cissy is genuinely a bit terrifying and Carol Kane is a proper underrated actress; there's a hint of TV movie about the whole thing but the uncomfortable atmosphere and the claustrophobic home they live in, and her mental instability, is very believable.

Cissy wants to carry on their dad's work and illustrate his book so she gets her sister to order in monkeys and apes for her to draw and play with but the poor lass is so crazy she just ends up killing them every time because they overwhelm her. Her sister won't have her put away "as long as she lives" because she loves her, but right from the start there's a real feeling of dread that Cissy is juts going to get worse and worse and she's very dangerous. It's implied she must get through primates like knickers cause at the start of the film she's already killed one, and for some reason Ellen caves really easily and gets another one for her.

I was really surprised by how bizarre and upsetting this film was and I think the Cissy character should be a more well known crazy person of cinema. Like the best horror/psychological thriller killers she's genuinely frightening but also tragic. I genuinely felt sorry for her and that made it more unpleasant.

I've just realised I've said "genuinely" a lot

[Golden E. Pump]

You're back!

Sorry, I have not seen this film. I do not see many films.

[Clownbaby]

You're back!

Yeah! I have no integrity whatsoever.

[Golden E. Pump]

Well you know what they say:

'Integrity makes your hair go curly.'

Actually that may be crusts. Still, fuck all bread and the horse it rode to town on.

[Blumf]

Yeah! I have no integrity whatsoever.

Have you left your corporeal form and become a being of pure energy?