House of Psychotic Women Rarities Collection Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		5.0
Overall		3.5

House of Psychotic Women Rarities Collection Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 25, 2022

Kier-la Janisse has been on the busy side for Severin Films lately, what with any number of supplemental productions as well as both this latest collection and the earlier, in some ways more grandiose, All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror. In that regard, it's kind of ironic in a way that at least some "folk horror" outings tend to feature women who are perceived to be psychotic, or perhaps if not afflicted to that level, emotionally troubled, in plot devices that see "innocents" confronted with some otherworldly horror that no one else believes is real. The "psychoses" in this set are probably more overtly manifest, in that they seem to be objective (mis?)behaviors rather than how others are interpreting those (mis?)behaviors, but one way or the other this is another rather remarkable collection of films curated by Janisse that should attract some niche attention. This set is kind of a companion piece to the eponymous tome Janisse published around a decade ago, which she termed "an autobiographical topography of female neurosis in horror and exploitation films", and which is being republished in tandem with this set in an expanded version (Severin is offering a deluxe bundle featuring the book).

For reviews of the four films in this set, please click on the following links:

Identikit Blu-ray review

I Like Bats Blu-ray review

Footprints Blu-ray review

The Other Side of the Underneath Blu-ray review

House of Psychotic Women Rarities Collection Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Video quality of each film is assessed in the above linked reviews.

House of Psychotic Women Rarities Collection Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Audio quality of each film is assessed in the above linked reviews.

House of Psychotic Women Rarities Collection Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Supplements on each disc are detailed in the above linked reviews. This is another handsomely packaged set from Severin, with "matching" insert graphics, all housed in a sturdy slipbox. For some reason the menus on a couple of the films offer the Elizabeth Taylor artwork from Identikit, rather than something germane to that particular production.

House of Psychotic Women Rarities Collection Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Some readers of my reviews may know that I spent decades unraveling the enigmatic story of one of the more infamous figures from Hollywood's Golden Age who had her own bouts with mental illness, Frances Farmer, and in a way that provided a really interesting perspective from which I viewed this gynocentric collection. Farmer was a "liberated" woman long before that term had ever been coined, and her headstrong tendencies, along with some inarguable emotional and anger issues, resulted in her being institutionalized for several years in the forties and fifties, and if her experiences were not quite at the Grand Guignol levels shown in many "madhouse" films (including Frances itself), they still obviously left their mark on her. Fascinatingly in that regard Farmer was not anti-psychiatry as at least a couple of the films in this set seem to be, though she was on record as stating that certain techniques like ECT were not especially helpful and perhaps even harmful in her experience. And in fact in both her 1958 This Is Your Life appearance and even more amazingly in a handwritten letter of application she submitted while institutionalized to try to become a nurse's aide at Western State Hospital, Farmer actually argues for therapeutic approaches that might be somewhat akin to the so-called "talking cure". The films in this set might argue for radically different approaches, but they each in their own way provide at least intermittently captivating depictions of "women on the verge of a nervous breakdown", and perhaps beyond that verge, so to speak, with female empowerment rather ironically often being a subtext. None of these films is an unheralded masterpiece, but they certainly are unforgettable in their own ways. Technical merits are generally solid, and the supplements very appealing. Recommended.