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Besides showcasing Barbarella-era Jane Fonda in one of her sexiest roles, Réné Clément’s thriller
Joy House offers enough psychological suspense to count as horror. In it, Marc (Alain Délon of Purple Noon) agrees to indentured servitude to two women, Melinda (Jane Fonda) and her Aunt Barbara (Lola Albright) who hide him from police following a crime he has committed. Though the ladies appear from the outset to have renounced corruption for a life of monastic charity, their catfights over Marc result in his being trapped inside their castle, glamorously located in the French Riviera. The harder he tries to escape, the more he realizes he is trapped in the web woven by these two spider-like villainesses.
Joy House’s suspense is wrapped in elegance. The stars, its settings, and the film’s score by Lalo Schifrin lifts it out of the B-movie, Hammer-film haunted house tale category. Like so many classic horror movies, most of the action takes place in a grand chateau, allowing
Joy House to revel in its sense of claustrophobia. This recalls Mario Bava films, such as
Black Sabbath and
Hatchet for the Honeymoon, though the sexual tension implicit to
Joy House is more akin to Jean Rollin’s movies, which focus as much on physical attraction as impending death. It also recalls
Mommie Dearest or
All About Eve, in which an elderly female competes with the younger for attention. Mirrored closet doors and reflective furniture throughout the mansion, as well as car rear-views, emphasize deception thematically in an especially Giallo way. However, there is zero gore here, and this film shies away from direct violence in favor of the implied, which is more in line with its sexually deviant undertow. --
Trinie Dalton
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