We'd shoot that terrible wig, too, if we were twinsies Bette Davis in the 1964 hag horror hootfest DEAD RINGER.

How do even powerhouse performers get themselves into movies this bad? After her triumphant comeback as the eponymous loony hag of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, fifty-six-year-old, difficult Bette Davis decreed that she would look good again onscreen, and that she would not work with difficult co-stars like Baby Jane’s Joan Crawford. Hence, Dead Ringer: Davis picked the project because she got to sashay about in expensive-looking clothes, and because she was her own co-star. She plays the dual roles of identical twins Edie and Maggie, who meet again after twenty years at the funeral of the man that one sister stole from the other.

Wealthy widow Maggie takes poor cocktail hostess Edie back to Beverly Hills, where she offers up her cast-off gowns and furs. “They’ll all be out of style before I’m out of mourning,” she explains. But Edie won’t settle for Maggie’s Diors, she wants Maggie’s entire pampered lifestyle. “You never loved anyone but yourself!” Edie says before coolly shooting Maggie dead. And after disguising the murder as her own suicide, she smoothly assumes Maggie’s identity. Now, since Davis makes no attempt whatsoever to differentiate between the twins — they have the identical voice, walk, and bad wig — it’s one of the movie’s hilariously grievous shortcomings that the plot turns on whether any one can spot that Edie’s winging it as Maggie. The good cop, Karl Malden, who loved the supposedly dead Edie, is easily fooled. But Maggie’s Great Dane, Duke, knows the difference at once, and before long Maggie’s gigolo lover Peter Lawford sniffs out the truth, too.

When Edie-as-Maggie learns that Lawford and the real Maggie murdered Maggie’s husband, Edie-as-Maggie realizes that she has killed Maggie only to take on the identity of a killer. Anyway, just then, Duke (make that Duke ex machina) attacks and kills Lawford, leaving Edie-as-Maggie all alone to face the officer who’s come to arrest her for murdering Maggie’s husband. If you guessed that the flatfoot is Malden, maybe you won’t be amazed by what happens next — but don’t bet on it. “Don’t ya know me?” Davis says, heaving her body at Malden. “I’m not Maggie, I’m Edie.” “Nice try,” Malden says, “but Edie was sweet and kind. She would never have killed her own sister. I was planning to ask her to marry me.” Inexplicably touched by this, Edie-as-Edie asks, “Did you ever tell her?” then toughens up again to claim she was just kidding about not being Maggie, whereupon she departs nobly to face Maggie’s certain death sentence — instead of just telling Malden that he’s a lousy judge of character.

TODAY MY DARLINGS, WE MEET MRS. TREFOILE. SHE'S ONE MEAN MOTHER-IN-LAW!

If you ever wondered what Carrie White's grandmother was like, or you enjoy having your horror films draped in hysteri- cal fundamentalist religious beliefs, then step right up and be sanctified by the outrageous Bible belting of Tallulah Bankhead in Die! Die! My Darling!

Believing that she owes her dead fiancé's mother an extended visit, debonair debutante Pat Caroll (spunky Stefanie Powers) ditches her BBC boyfriend at Elstree and heads off to the most baroque home in the British Empire. There she meets Mrs. Trefoile (Bankhead), a fading stage slag turned religious fanatic who has the really bizarre idea that promiscuous Pat needs a moral soul cleansing. She kidnaps the lass, locks her in an attic bedroom, and feeds her unflavored groats hoping she will expel her sin via explosive diarrhea. When that doesn't work, she starves her, all the while quoting various passages from John the Baptist's greatest hits. When Pat acts up, the preachy old prole has her staff of sadists beat, bend, and bind her. Then she recites a few psalms in her breathy, basso beer putsch voice. Eventually, after several failed escape attempts, lots of missed meals, and one too many readings of Paul's Letters to the Ephesians, Pat goes bat guano and wants out. But Mrs. Trefoile has a higher call- ing as part of her criminal conspiracy. She wants the carnal Miss Caroll to confess her digressions and then join her dead son, the sort of homosexual Stephen, in the great be- yond. And there is only one way that the trapped lass can achieve this goal and that is to Die! Die! My Darling!

This strange entry into 60s ‘Grande Dame Guignol” drapes its dementia in a decidedly Deuteronomy design. Mrs. Trefoile is the kind of stark raving loon who bleats the beatitudes of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and then mismanages their intent for her own twisted desire for creating cantankerous chaos. Packing a paltry pistol and wandering the wounded corridors of her fetid funhouse screaming for her self-snuffing son Stephen, she directly answers the questions of What Ever Happened To Baby Jane, Who Slew Auntie Roo, and What's The Matter With Helen all in one sacrosanct swoop.

With the incomparable Tallulah in her last film appearance, Die! Die! My Darling! is a good reminder that your in-laws aren’t as bad as they’re made out to be – most of the time.

Joan Crawford is a terrifying vision in fishnets in the late 60s camp masterpiece BERSERK

There's nothing certain in show business," Joan Crawford tells us in the aptly titled 1967 gem Berserk. "We've eaten caviar, and we've eaten sawdust." Connoisseurs of Bad Big-Top Movies We Adore like Big Circus, Carnival Story and The Greatest Show on Earth can be certain of one thing, though: Berserk --  which features Crawford looking even more butch and self-enchanted than usual -- offers up the tastiest mouthful of sawdust to be found anywhere in this demented genre.

When 59-year-old circus ringmaster Crawford (a terrifying vision in her trim tuxedo jacket and fishnet stockings) introduces her world-famous high-wire soloist, the audience is definitely not ready for what happens next: the high wire snaps and coils around the performer's neck, leaving him dangling above their upturned faces. Oblivious to the human tragedy, a post-show Crawford busies herself with the night box-office receipts. "How can you be so cold-blooded?" asks her business partner. "We're running a circus, not a charm school," Crawford growls, going on to point out that the violent death will be good for business. Then she changes tack. "What can I do to cheer you up?" she queries. "I just may let you tuck me in tonight." God forbid! Even with Vaseline smeared on the lens and strategic shadows cast across her face, our star looks, at best, like a short, male senior citizen in elaborate drag.

The next day, who should turn up but a high-wire soloist in need of a job. The suspiciously useful newcomer is strapping studmuffin Ty Hardin, who is soon embroiled in a torrid affair with Crawford, despite the fact that he's 22 years her junior. The biggest scare in this whole movie is the appearance of a postcoital Crawford, done up in a negligee and a big-hair wig. "Long ago I lost the capacity to love," she purrs, very believably indeed. "If you want me to spell it out for you, I will. What we have is no more than a greeting card. Maybe not as friendly." Just as you're thinking that's not exactly what you'd say if you looked like an aging female impersonator and had somehow gotten Ty Hardin into bed, Hardin replies, "You're playing a dangerous game!"

When Crawford's business partner is murdered, the circus performers get agitated. The magician -- obviously the thinker in the group -- announces, "It is clear to me there is a killer loose." Enter blowsy, badly bleached blonde tootsie Diana Dors (who was at one time hailed as England's answer to Marilyn Monroe -- i.e., Jayne Mansfield with bad teeth). As the magician's new paramour/assistant, Dors expresses her view that bosswoman Crawford is the killer. Overhearing this, Crawford snaps, "You slut!" Whereupon Dors demonstrates the accuracy of this assessment by boozily coming on to Hardin. You may want to memorize Hardin's reply for your own future use: "You're peddling your merchandise at the wrong booth." When Hardin tosses Dors out on her rear -- literally -- a high-water mark in cinema cattiness is reached as an onlooking circus babe croaks, "You must be more careful, you'll damage your brain!" Happily, a nail-scratching, wig-pulling catfight ensues.

Enter Crawford's unhappy teen daughter (Judy Geeson) who's just been expelled from charm school. "Let me stay here with you," she pleads to her mom. "The circus is in my blood like it's in yours." Speaking of blood, the next big-top demise occurs when the magician saws Dors in two for real. Now even Crawford is afraid. "I've got the jitters!" she confesses to Hardin. "I'm not made of stone!" Actually, wax is what we were thinking.

Doing what anyone whose circus is being torn asunder by a psychopath would do, Crawford throws a gigantic party, at which she confesses to Hardin that she's made him her partner: "You'll have 25 percent of the circus and 100 percent of me." When charm school dropout Geeson appears to be sulking her way through the shindig, Crawford wonders out loud if the girl is spoiled. "You certainly never lacked anything," she points out. "No, except what I needed most... you!" the teen shrieks, bolting into the night. "I have an eerie feeling the killer will strike again at any moment," Crawford murmurs. Hmmm. Is this just a doting mom's wishful thinking? We don't want to spoil the ending for you, but suffice it to say that Berserk parallels its star's real life in some amusing ways. The on-screen Crawford often had her hands full with pesky teen daughters -- think Mildred Pierce, Strait-Jacket, Della -- but for cinematic subtext on the offscreen Crawford's doubts about her adopted daughter Christina, Berserk is unsurpassed.

Note: If you do happen to catch Berserk, be sure to note circus owner Crawford's special booth for Pepsi-Cola, a company in which the real-life Crawford was a major stockholder. Given the homicidal goings-on of the film, Pepsi's slogan on the booth -- "Come alive with Pepsi" -- is a brilliant touch.

With 'HUSH', Jessica Lange hurls herself into Grande Dame Guignol cinema with delicious results. We just dare you to try and stifle your giggles.

Anyone who's witnessed Joan Crawford’s female impersonation in Johnny Guitar realizes that it spoiled her for any “normal” roles forever after, while Faye Dunaway’s loony one-woman floor show in Mommie Dearest (playing Joan Crawford) altered her once stellar career into one as a roving mercenary actress in films as disparate and desperate as Supergirl, The Temp and Dunston Checks In. For Jessica Lange the film that transformed her from a critical darling into a misshapen, overblown character out of Tennessee Williams or William Castle is Jonathan Darby's daft potboiler HUSH. We defy anyone not to giggle as Lange waltzes around in jodhpurs playing Martha Baring, the head of a large Kentucky horse ranch called Kilronan.

When Lange's upper-crust hunk of a son, (bland Johnathon Schaech) arrives at Kilronan with his wide-eyes and his void-of-a-girlfriend Gwyneth Paltrow in tow for a down-home Christmas, Lange flares her nostrils incestuously, regarding poor Paltrow as merely a vessel for Schaech's child and simply not the "right" woman for her little man. Naturally, when she finds Gwyneth lounging naked in her son's room (instead of in her assigned spot in the guest bedroom), Lange leaves nothing to chance and puncture's Paltrow's diaphragm. (well, wouldn't you?) The kids leave but soon Paltrow finds herself preggers, and - for reasons to convoluted to explain - they return to the bowels of Kentucky to wait out the trimesters. Oh no!

Lange immediately takes possession of Schaech and Paltrow like Hitler invading Poland. A visit by Gwyneth to grandma Nina Foch, (a game old broad who knows where all the bodies are buried), reveals Lange's evil past and the suspicions surrounding the death of her husband. From then on, Lange turns into a psychopathic harridan. With the aid of powerful horse medication, she succeeds in inducing Paltrow's pregnancy. The result is a harrowing home-birth sequence that will forever after give natural childbirth advocates a bad name. This ordeal finally ignites Paltrow's anger. When she is able to walk upright again (a mere 24 hours later!), she goes hunting for Lange and revenge.

Movies this bad can't happen by accident, and Lange (who must have realized she didn't have a campy-psychotic role under her belt yet), treats us to some of the funniest scenes involving rats, horses, pregnant women and naked old ladies that you'll ever want to see. She drawls, vamps and guzzles the scenery with gusto. It's like she's competing in a late career Bette Davis contest and Glenn Close just took the lead.

But the true find here is Johnathon Schaech. Actually, his acting talent is tougher to spot here than his name is to spell. But if they ever decide to make a film entitled "Barbie & Ken: The Genitalia Experiment", here's your Ken.

'PICTURE MOMMY DEAD' - A DELICIOUS MOTHER'S DAY GIFT FROM US TO YOU

After the usual mother's day goodies that come from dear hubby (You know the kind, girls - flowers, heart-shaped boxes of cheap chocolates, etc) all designed with one thing in mind - his erection. And after the usual handmade cards and goodies from little Jimmy jr. - designed to swell our hearts to bursting but somehow making us wish that we had upped his allowence (just a little) two weeks prior - how delighted we were to recieve a package from our oldest -and most sensitive- son, Thad. (He's away at boarding school, but just between us - he's always been our favorite.) So imagine my mixed emotions when I feverishly unwrapped the package, only to find a rare dvd of a dubiously titled Hollywood clunker called PICTURE MOMMY DEAD!

Starlet-In-Distress Cinema, that Bad Movie genre which always guarantees unintentional guffaws from its frayed formula --- assorted has-beens in a spooky mansion terrorizing a youngish, talentish gal sporting big hair and too much eye shadow --- reached its apex in the '60s: think Connie Stevens in Two on a Guillotine, Joey Heatherton in My Blood Runs Cold, and Stefanie Powers in Die! Die! My Darling! Let us now praise the very worst of these many stinkers, producer-director Bert I. Gordon's 1966 opus, Picture Mommy Dead. What distinguishes Mommy from the pack is the fact that instead of hiring a standard-issue "name" starlet as the requisite mentally-unstable-but-comely-heiress-in-jeopardy, auteur Gordon instead cast his own talent-free daughter, chipmunk-cheeked Susan Gordon, which gives the movie some real fizz when the plot's Electra complex kicks in at the finale. But Susan sets off double meanings throughout the film. Whenever she bleats, to screen papa Don Ameche, dialogue like "Daddy, what's the matter with me?" and, "I'm the worst thing that ever was alive!" she seems to be reviewing her own performance.

In terms of scene-swallowing antics, the film's many also-rans --- "guest stars" include Signe Hasso, Anna Lee, Wendell Corey! --- give Susan a run for her money. Thrill to Martha Hyer, Susan's adulterous stepmother, snarling at Ameche, "Is it true I made love to a bellboy at the hotel in Geneva? Or are you still wondering about that guide in Paris?" Delight to caretaker Maxwell Reid who --- sporting improbable false scars from the fire that killed Ameche's first wife, Zsa Zsa Gabor --- hopes the cops will reopen the case: "They may discover the person who took her life," he rants, "and my face!" Then there's Gabor, in flashback, camping it up with peals of stagy laughter and pearls of Zsa Zsa-speak: "Dahlink, don't be such a borink man!"

Even Susan's talking doll (which looks like Cher) gets to upstage her, for when the doll's cord is pulled, it spouts remarks like, "I'm hep! Like, uh, y'know, a beatnik!" and, "Come on, let's get with it, like, wheee!" It gets loonier: when Susan scratches a life-size portrait of Zsa Zsa, the painting bleeds. Inevitably, the shredding of just such a tacky canvas can often be a Bad Movie moment --- ever see Susan Hayward slash Bette Davis's likeness in Where Has Love Gone? -- and here, Susan attacks the painting of Zsa Zsa with a candlestick, screeching "Die! Die!" You'll long to call out to her, "Don't you mean Die! Die! My Dahlink!?"

For the big finish, we're meant to realize that Susan is hopelessly mentally ill because she can't tell the difference between aged starlet Hyer and aged starlet Gabor --- but since both are dressed in the exact same evening gown, sport similar cotton-candy dos, and have no acting talent whatsoever, who can? When Ameche kills Hyer, Susan helpfully torches the house --- just as the pair had destroyed the place years before, when Ameche killed Gabor --- so Susan can, at last, have her Daddy all to herself. Who knows what private fantasies the two Gordons were playacting here --- but, for the grand finale, he misguidedly apes Sunset Blvd., having Ameche and Susan descend the stairs not into utter madness, as intended, but straight into the annals of high camp.

I simply must remember to thank Thad personally. Perhaps some homemade marzapan frosted brownies delivered in his favorite Barbie lunch pail from first grade. Let's see ... he has third period gym class this friday. Perfect! I'm sure he and the other boys in gym will be thrilled.

. . .AND FINALLY, A TRIBUTE TO THE ULTIMATE MOTHER OF THEM ALL ON THIS FESTIVE DAY OF DAYS.

Caught up in all the sentimentality of Picture Mommy Dead, I began thinking about my own dear sainted matriarch, so I trotted out that tried and true mother's day favorite - MOMMIE DEAREST - put on my favorite hat and drove up to the Maximum Security Twilight Rest Home to enjoy our annual get together.

Here’s one that separates the fainthearted from the strong. Faye Dunaway, in the role she was born to play, is deeply, deeply scary as Joan Crawford who, according to daughter Christina’s best-selling book, tyrannized her kids almost beyond belief. The moviemakers surely expected to be rolling in dough and acclaim for this posh version of a red-hot literary property, so imagine their surprise when audiences rolled in the aisles. Why? Dunaway. So over-the-top, so out-there, so, well, Faye, she instantly installed herself as the all-time Countess of Camp.

The fun begins when Dunaway, as aging MGM star Crawford, realizes that her career’s skidding, so everyone around her catches hell. Wailing at her maid as she shoves aside a huge potted plant, Dunaway cleans the floor herself, saying, "You have to move the tree!I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at the dirt."

Mad is right: Figuring that, since she can’t have children, she’ll reap fabulous publicity by adopting one, enter orphan Christina (Mara Hobel), who isn’t the cooperative dream child Dunaway envisioned. When the kid gets sassy, Dunaway locks her up. Out of work, Dunaway gets battier, cursing her studio boss while she jogs: "The biggest female star he’s got – ever had – and he’s burying me alive. Survive! Survive!" and demonically chopping off Christina’s hair when she finds the kid mimicking her, snarling, "I’d rather you go bald to school than looking like a tramp!" She lays into lover-lawyer Steve Forrest, so when he starts to walk out, she pleads with him to stay, crying, "I’m not acting!" while doing nothing but.

When MGM drops her, brace yourself for full frontal Faye as she rampages in the middle of the night, cutting the blooms off her prize roses, then bellowing "Tina – bring me the axe!" Don’t miss the scene where Dunaway, her face covered in a cold-cream Kabuki mask, trashes her daughter’s clothes closet, shrieking "No wire hangers!" then showers the bathroom floor with Dutch Cleanser, ordering Christina to clean up the mess. This is capped with the most bizarre closeup in movie history, as Dunaway s-l-o-w-l-y turns her head away while staring out cross-eyed into space. (It’s anybody’s call whether Crawford’s supposed to be insane, or whether Dunaway perhaps just went bonkers playing her. However, it was at this point that my own dear mother began to have some sort of grand mal seizure and I had to call in several armed attendents to give her a shot. After which, the attendents and I - and dear gurgling, but sedated, mom - finished watching this wonderful family film.)

Dunaway clashes with grownup Christina (Diana Scarwid) too, nearly strangling her child in full view of a horrified magazine reporter. Widowed by a Pepsi magnate, Dunaway stuns a board meeting of executives who try to shove her out of the picture by uttering, "Don’t fuck with me, fellas, this ain’t my first time at the rodeo."

In the end, Crawford cuts both kids out of her will. "As usual, she has the last word," says grownup Christopher. "Does she?" asks Christina. No, we do, and we declare Mommie Dearest about as high in the Bad Movie pantheon as it is possible to go.