Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a horror movie from 1971. That movie is "What's The Matter With Helen?".
Now, I should probably explain something first before diving right into this movie. See, when I was doing the small amount of research about this film, the genre that this movie was listed in wasn't exclusively horror. According to Google, it has a few different genre's listed under it. The genre's are horror, thriller, musical, and, I'm not kidding here, 'hagsploitation'.
Now I've heard the word 'exploitation' being abbreviated into different meanings like 'blacksploitation', but this is the first time I've heard of 'hagsploitation'. And what's even more interesting about it is that it has another term called 'Psycho-biddy'. I had to look that one up because I had no idea what that meant. And I can tell you guys what that term means. Essentially, it's about a genre of films that are set in the 1960's featuring famous older women who become mentally insane. So, I learned something new today thanks to this movie and I haven't even watched it yet.
Now beyond the many genres this movie is listed under, I don't know a whole lot about this movie. The only thing I know is that it stars Debbie Reynolds and Shelley Winters. Beyond that, I don't know anything about the plot, so I'm going into this one 100% blind here. I'm hoping for this one to be good, but the only way I'm gonna find out if this movie is any good at all is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "What's The Matter With Helen?".
12 minutes later
So let me see if I understand this. Adelle is suggesting to Helen that she should come with her to California, where they can have new lives and new names...and they're not even going to change their first names. I'm bringing this up because, earlier, someone had called them and was threatening to kill them. If this supposed killer somehow recognizes who these girls are, despite kinda changing their names to something else, then what's the point of even changing their names to begin with? Furthermore, their sons were sentenced to life in prison and the mothers were the main center of attention. I don't think changing your names and your lifestyles is gonna change very much. Just something to consider is all.
9 minutes later
OK, that's something different. I've never seen someone killed by the blades of a plow before. I'm not even sure how that all works, but then again, I've never been near a farm, let alone even a plow before. So, I guess I learned something new about plows today at least.
14 minutes later
I am gonna say one thing about this movie, guys. The music here is really good. Mind you, we haven't gotten any actual musical numbers as of yet, but what is here is still really good. I can at least say that much.
6 minutes later
So, guys, I said a moment ago that we haven't gotten any actual musical numbers yet, and now we're being treated to a musical number that's basically just a recital of Shirley Temple's "Animal Crackers In My Soup". And I'm gonna tell you guys right now, this little girl's attempt at singing *really* sucks. She obviously doesn't have the singing voice of Shirley Temple and it's bringing her whole performance down quite a bit. Just wanted to share that with you guys.
14 minutes later
So there was blood on that cardboard cutout of Adelle in her uniform. And there's a bunch of bloodied stab wounds on it, too. Not totally sure how they got there, exactly, or where the blood came from. But if that was suppose to be scary....it honestly really wasn't. I mean, OK, sure, it's kinda weird and creepy, but not totally scare worthy. But that's probably just me.
11 minutes later
So the guy who sent Helen the letter, Helen ends up pushing him down the stairs, which somehow causes his death. I'm sorry, guys, but I find it a little bit hard to believe that someone would die that easily by being pushed down the stairs. I could maybe understand if he had a concussion or something, but him dying immediately after being pushed down the stairs, which isn't really that much of a flight of stairs to begin with, is something I'm not totally buying here.
The Review
And so the movie ends the same way it does on the cover. And there's also no music playing during the credits either. OK, well, that was kind of a weird and creepy way to end the movie. Anyway, guys, that was "What's The Matter With Helen?". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. So, what to say about this movie? Well, I am gonna start by saying that, for the most part, I did wound up enjoying this movie. Now mind you, I don't the movie's great or anything, but I was kinda surprised by how decent the movie was.
So with that said, let's try and get into the review proper here. I'm gonna start, as usual, with the writing. Now going into this movie, I had no idea what to expect in terms of a plot here. I mentioned earlier about the number of genres that this movie is listed under. Those being horror, thriller, hagsploitation, and musical. And for the most part, those genres stick very well here. Not so much musical, as there's only about 3 songs in the entire movie, and most of them take place somewhere near the first third of it. Every other genre, like I said, lives up to what this movie was trying to aim for.
Now as for our story, it mainly centers around our two main leads, who are mothers that move to Hollywood shortly after their sons were convicted of murder and are sent to prison for life. Adelle, the blonde sister, ends up opening a dance school for young girls who hope to make it big in Hollywood. And then things kinda go a little slow for a while with our story, because it kinda switches back and forth between Adelle getting close to a Texan millionaire named Linc. While with Helen, she kinda just goes along with whatever Adelle has going for the recital until she starts getting hallucinations about the bad things that have happened in her life, which then causes shit for her to go south later on in the movie.
I should probably transition this over to the characters, because this is where the movie does shine very well in. Our characters here are fleshed out, deep, and you do get a better sense of their backstories. Well, more so with Helen than you do Adelle. Sure, Adelle does have some bits of backstory, but nothing compared to Helen. Aside from her name being in the title of the movie, she's also the most interesting character of the entire film, too. She's both kinda innocent when she's all nice and everything, and then her mind starts to deteriorate into madness later on because of her hallucinations with her past. Such as when her husband was killed because of the blades on a plow from a long time ago, and her son, who was only 4 years old then, thinks that she killed him intentionally. Which is sort of a messed up thing to think of when you're that age, but then again, kids can think of things that a lot of adults couldn't think of. And this is coming from someone who doesn't like children, mind you. But still, it could happen, depending on a child's mindset.
As for Adelle, she's more focused on the show business part of things and ends up going out with our Texan millionaire named Linc, and she seems to have fallen in love with him and they start going out more often. Now this is where I kinda sorta have to interject here because this is honestly one of the weaker parts of the movie. Mainly because, outside of it mostly being not as interesting, you don't really see very much of a personal connection between the two. In other words, them being a potential couple isn't very believable. Though to be fair, Helen herself, early on, points that out, when she asks Adelle if he feels the same way about her? I mean, they went out on one date and she's already head over heels for him. But even so, there's not much of a real connection between the two that you're gonna really care about.
One other thing that I wanted to make mention of, which is mostly a minor gripe for me, but I could possibly see it being an issue to some people. The pacing can be slightly uneven at times. The movie's just about an hour and 41 minutes long and the movie does take a little bit of time to slowly boil itself. Which I know some people might see that as a slight turn off, however, I don't see it as much of an issue. Because even though the movie is about an hour and 41 minutes long, the movie does speed on by, and I didn't really notice much of a pacing issue because the story does flow very well and doesn't really have a lot of padding. The closest I could maybe think is the dance recital, which even then, that itself does go by pretty quickly. So the pacing here is really good.
Ultimately, guys, the writing in this movie is pretty sharp. It's not great, but it does enough here to make you interested in what's going on. And to add on to that, the acting in this film is amazing. Almost everyone here turns in a great showing, which includes our leading ladies, to Dennis Weaver as the Texan millionaire. And what's funny about the latter is that this is the second movie within the last month that I covered that features him. The last film I covered which starred him was "Duel". So that's honestly kind of cool to see him again. The only bits of bad acting that I could spot was anytime the kids started singing. I'll get more into this later when I cover music, but I'll let you guys know now that their singing is terrible. And, okay sure, I'm not expecting miracles when it comes to child actors, especially when they have to sing, but their singing in this movie is genuinely terrible. Outside of that, there's not a whole lot I can say about their regular acting because almost none of them, outside of the Shirley Temple lookalike, has a lot of lines to work with. And that's fine, because that's how a lot of child actors should operate. At least the ones who don't have a lot of acting training. At least, that's how I see it anyways. But yeah, for the most part, the acting here is really good.
Special effects in this movie are pretty good, too. Mind you now, there's not a whole lot here in terms of effects. There are some blood effects, though it's more on the cheaper side. However, I'm going to take a wild guess here and say that this movie was working on a slightly lower budget, so I don't think they were planning a whole lot there when it comes to blood effects. The costuming and makeup effects, though, are definitely more focused on, because some of it focuses on the dance recital the kids are wearing. Most of it looks pretty good, although there was one child who was wearing a somewhat suggestive dress for her age while she was performing. I'm going to assume that maybe this was a normal thing back in the 1930's when kids were performing, especially if they wanted to make it big into stardom. I don't know how accurate that truly is, although I wouldn't necessarily be shocked, considering how some kids have been treated in Hollywood for a long time. Although I won't go too deep into that, personally.
But anyway, the costuming here is still really good. And considering that this film's story was set in the 30's, most of everyone looks like how they would dress up back then, so I can at least say the accuracy of the time period is pretty good. Camerawork here is really good, as well. Lighting here is lit perfectly fine. Sound-mixing is mixed very well. The music for the score is really good. The soundtrack is also pretty good, too, with the exception of any of the kids singing, of course. As I mentioned earlier, most of these kids can't sing. The little girl that tried to sing Shirley Temple's song sounded terrible, and that kinda goes for the other child who was singing that other song that I honestly don't remember. You know, the one that I said was wearing a rather suggestive outfit for her age. But yeah, the kids singing is shit. However, I will say that the dance choreography is really good. Granted, it's not, like, on the levels of other dance sequences from other movies like "Singing In The Rain". Although in fairness, I don't think this movie was trying to aim for that. Plus, you don't have Gene Kelley anywhere nearby trying to make the actors repeat the dance choreography on multiple takes. So at least there is that.
Ultimately, guys, when all is said and done, can I recommend "What's The Matter Helen?" Yes, I can most certainly recommend it. Granted, I don't know how good this movie will get better on multiple viewings, but I can at least say that the movie is pretty good. If you're interested in this kind of movie, I'm sure you can probably find it on DVD or Blu-ray somewhere. Maybe you can find it on some streaming service, assuming they haven't censored anything on it. Yeah, I should also quickly mention that this movie does have some nudity, although it's very brief. Still though, I can recommend this movie, despite all that. And who knows? Maybe I might end up covering more of these 'Hagsploitation' films if I ever come across any of them at some point. For now, though, I'm gonna go and watch something else. I'm kinda in the mood to watch another exploitation film. And you know what? I haven't seen it since I reviewed it for this series, but I'm gonna go and watch my copy of the original "I Spit On Your Grave". I know it's not an easy film to watch, but I still really enjoyed it, and it's probably the best exploitation film I have ever seen. So, I'm gonna go do that next once I get done with this review.
Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.
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