Director: Eileen Daly
Writers: Eileen Daly, Lindsey S
Producers: Eileen Daly, Lindsey S, Dominic Daly
Cast: Eileen Daly, Sam Cullingworth, Justin G Gibson
Country: UK
Year of release: 2022
Website: www.eileendalyproductions.com

The second of EileenDaly’s homegrown horror features is set in, and was filmed in, Northampton - hence the presence of local legend Jason Impey as DoP (co-credited with Carlos Dittborn Callejas) and editor (co-credited with Eileen herself and her mysterious partner ‘Lindsey S’).

For this ‘Dalyade’ the ghost-hunting team of Eileen, bodybuilding medium Seb Wainwright (Sam Cullingworth) and defrocked priest Simon Vogel (Justin G Gibson) visit a B&B which was once home to a 1930s Hollywood starlet. There’s a lot of them in Northampton. Michael John Lovett is the creepy proprietor Tom, and Nicky Kells is Eileen’s friend Nicky who runs a weekly art club on the premises (Michael Highman, Debbie Hill-Cousins and Sam Matthews are the participants).

Eileen becomes possessed by the starlet’s unquiet spirit as she committed suicide after being spurned by her lover (Scott Richard Bodill). For the possession scenes (and some 1930s flashbacks), Eileen dons a blonde wig and pink dress and a Marilyn Monroe demeanour. There’s an exorcism scene with Eileen tied to the bed, and also a Ouija board scene. For those whose tastes lean towards the homoerotic, there’s a scene of Cullingworth/Wainwright posing in front of a mirror, and for the truly disturbed there’s a scene of Vogel/Gibson, in stockings and basque, whacking his own arse with a fish spatula.

As with Mr Crispin, the notion of whether or not this is some sort of TV show teeters on the edge of the narrative, including a brief shot near the end of an entire TV crew (played by Highman, Hill-Cousins and Matthews) running out of the house just before the three leads do.

As before, there are clips from the work on Jean Rollin, whose defiance of simple narrative constructions and coherent storytelling is a very evident influence on Dame Eileen’s own work. Nigel Wingrove at Redemption loaned this production clips from Shivers of the Vampires, Two Orphan Vampires and The Living Dead Girl plus – very noticeably to those of us who notice these things – his own Sacred Flesh. Occasional establishing stock shots of a mittel-European schloss do not, it must be said, match at all with the urban East Midlands location.

Hollywood Betrayed is another fun microbudget romp that will appeal to anyone who loves contemporary British horror that doesn’t take itself seriously.