Metacritic reviews

The ultimate camp-Gothic bitchfight. Vastly entertaining.

As in the best Hitchcock movies, suspense, rather than actual mayhem, drives the film.

Aldrich's direction and dynamite performances from the two old troupers make this film an experience.

Whatever else it may turn out to be, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is certainly one of the most fascinating and unusual cinema items of the year, and one that will capture a huge amount of publicity and comment.

Sour as month-old milk and with a tang of off-screen animosity in its mouth, Robert Aldrich's melodrama is still hysterical in every sense of the word.

That undeniable off-screen friction only helps grease the wheels of the film’s compulsive forward momentum, supplying a crackling energy to scenes wherein, among other gothic horrors, pet birds are served up for supper with relish.

Once the inept, draggy start is passed, the film’s pace builds with ever-growing force.

This frightening, darkly comic picture is much influenced by Sunset Boulevard.

I can't help thinking that the most interesting things happen in the precredit sequence - the fraught childhood, Blanche's sinister "accident" - but it's still vivid, barnstorming stuff.

The feeble attempts that Mr. Aldrich has made to suggest the irony of two once idolized and wealthy females living in such depravity and the pathos of their deep-seated envy having brought them to this, wash out very quickly under the flood of sheer grotesquerie. There is nothing particularly moving or significant about these two.