What Became of Jack and Jill?

This unjustly neglected Amicus horror gem remains a deliciously twisted tale of opportunistic Octogenarian offing, and diabolical delinquency. Duplicitous, ardently inheritance-coveting, Johnnie Tallent (Paul Nicolas) and his avidly callous conspirator, Jill Standish (Vanessa Howard) plan and evilly execute the cruel death of Johnnie's loving Gran, Alice Tallent (Mona Washbourne). Bill Bain's dark, wickedly entertaining psychodrama is enlivened by compelling performances, with a mesmerisingly malevolent turn from the nubile, electrifyingly libidinous strumpet, Vanessa 'Girly' Howard.

The fine filmmaking by director, Bain making the most of notable writer, Roger 'The Avenger's Marshall's blackened, bracingly nihilistic text. The dour suburban milieu of loneliness and seething discontent is palpable. Paul Nicholas plays the ambivalent, coldly scheming, Johnnie with remarkable fluency, utilizing subtler shades suggesting, perhaps, at one time, he may actually have had some genuine affection for his poor Gran. While lurid, and undeniably exploitative in nature, there's an innate melancholy, a dark pathos, redolent of the glumly melodramatic, socially conscious kitchen sink doom-fests of the mid to late 60s. A skewed 70s Brit-Horror delight, 'What Became of Jack And Jill' ranks highly in the pantheon of terror-tweaked 70s shock, and the lack of a HD restoration is conspicuous!

Although nowhere near as disturbing as Amicus thought, What Became of Jack and Jill is still pretty grim by the British standard of the day. The film would be a lot less without Vanessa Howard and not just for the obvious reasons, few actresses can play unhinged quite as well. Paul Nicholas is clearly doomed from the start as Johnnie and Mona Washbourne's Alice manages to be sympathetic without laying it on too thick. The whole thing looks drab beyond belief as if all the colour is slowing draining from the world, the Summer of Love isn't just over, it never happened.

I can understand why the late Vanessa Howard quit the business after this junk. But she married a millionaire.

A stupid druggy and his dumb drugged-up girlfriend wants to kill his grandmother for her house and money. They are irritating as they can be. It's really easy to feel bad for the grandmother who's seemingly stuck with her awful and evil grandson caring for her. It's one of those films concerning youthism, power to the youth and down with the "oldies" (as said in the film).

The movie had a couple of moments of being a little bit interesting but kept falling flat after the "moments" each time. It's slow, boring mainly and the two youths are irritating as all hell. Let's just say I was unimpressed with the film for the most part.

2/10

If you are checking out this title here on IMDb, chances are you are a fan of Amicus productions and are searching for the very few titles that haven't made their way to DVD yet. I managed to get my hands on a copy of this one and watched it last night.

A 20-something loser who lives with his grandmother schemes to get rid of her so he can inherit the house and the big pile of money she's sitting on. With the help of his cold-as-ice girlfriend, he convinces poor Granny that a rising group of British youth are violently getting rid of all old people, making her last days as torturous as possible. That is basically the plot. There is no supernatural twist as I was expecting from an Amicus production. While the film does manage to generate sympathy for Granny, it doesn't do much else.

We've all seen this type of story play out many, many times before - Amicus themselves did a much better version in one of the stories in "Tales From The Crypt" with Peter Cushing, but with the plot-enhancing supernatural twist. Don't go out of your way to find this one guys, there is a reason why this is one hasn't been re-released yet.