Overview: In Volume 3 of this wonderful series from Hammer Films we get 'Maniac' (An American painter has an affair with a bar owner in a French village and agrees to help her murderer husband escape from a prison for the criminally insane) and 'Die! Die! My Darling! (A young woman is terrorized by her deceased fiancé's demented mother who blames her for her son's death).

Blu-ray Verdict: In 'Maniac' (1963, B&W - Not Rated - Kerwin Mathews, Nadia Gray, Donald Houston, Liliane Brousse), American landscape painter Geoff Farrell (Kerwin Matthews), stranded in Europe, is attracted to Annette, a young French barmaid, but ends up falling for her seductive step-mother, Eve (Nadia Gray), instead.

Four years earlier, the teen-aged Annette was raped on her way home from school and her father, Georges, institutionalized for taking an acetylene torch to her assailant.

Eve soon convinces Geoff to help her husband, now a local hero, escape from the insane asylum but, once free, a frightening series of events makes it look like Georges was a homicidal maniac after all.

In the wake of 'Psycho', England's Hammer Studios made a few black and white "mini-Hitchcock" thrillers that tried to emulate the Master of Suspense.

Indeed, 'Paranoiac', 'Maniac' and 'Hysteria' all featured real or imagined madness, murder, sex, and deception - along with numerous plot twists - to keep viewers on the edge of their seats with varying degrees of success.

There's a stark, creepy, noir-like quality to 'Maniac' and the unseen rape, torture and murder in the beginning is quite disturbing. The location shooting in the isolated region of the French Camargue is a decided asset and the compelling story, written by Jimmy Sangster, includes a number of suspenseful sequences before a surprise revelation that is near impossible to see coming.

As for 'Die! Die! My Darling!' (1965, Color - Not Rated - Tallulah Bankhead, Stefanie Powers, Peter Vaughan, Donald Sutherland), the woman known for giving extravagant parties and answering door bells au natural in her youth plays an old, religious grande dame with no make-up and drab attire!

That's right, Tallulah Bankhead, in her last screen performance, shows us one more time that she was a consummate actress when given the opportunity to perform.

Every moment of hers is precious as she plays a woman that has driven her son from home by her excessive religious fanaticism and is now coping with his death.

She is visited by a woman, played by Stephanie Powers, that was engaged to her son. The dialogue and interaction between Miss Bankhead and Miss Powers is wonderful as Bankhead cuts her speech off and hams it up almost in a sedate yet effective manner.

Powers soon becomes a forced guest as Tallulah tries and "cleanse" her soul. Watching Tallulah read Biblical passages, sermonize on the evils of the flesh, and gently yet forcefully decay into a state of histrionics is delightful to watch.

My God, that woman could act! The rest of the cast is effective with Donald Sutherland in a satisfactory yet forgettable role as a dim-witted servant. Solid direction, claustrophobic settings, and good production values all add up to some good old-fashioned fun! This is a Widescreen Presentation (1.78:1) enhanced for 16x9 TVs.