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Psycho-biddy is a colloquial term for a sub-genre of the horror/thriller movie also known by the...

Psycho-biddy is a colloquial term for a sub-genre of the horror/thriller movie also known by the name Older women in peril, which was most prevalent from the early 1960s through the mid-1970s. The genre has also been variously nicknamed by the press as "hagsploitation," "hag horror" and "Grande Dame Guignol." Psycho-biddy thrillers are a bricolage of many genre elements and themes: gothic, Grand Guignol, black comedy, psycho-drama, melodrama, revenge, camp and even the musical. But none of these, nor their combination, mark a particular movie as belonging to this peculiar sub-genre. A psycho-biddy movie, by its very nomenclature, must possess a psycho-biddy: a dangerous, insane or mentally unstable woman of advanced years. In some cases, the woman may be in jeopardy of some sort, with another party attempting to drive her to mental instability. Often (but not always), there are two older women pitted against one another in a life-or-death struggle, usually the result of bitter hatreds, jealousies, or rivalries that have percolated over the course of not years, but decades. These combatants are often blood-relatives and live a life of relative wealth. The psychotic character is