There Was a Little Girl, also known as Madhouse and And When She Was Bad, is a 1981 Italian/American horror film directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis, starring Trish Everly, Dennis Robertson, Allison Biggers, and Michael Macrae. The plot follows schoolteacher Julia Sullivan (Everly) as she is stalked by her psychopathic twin sister Mary (Biggers) in the days leading up to her birthday.
Although it received an uncut theatrical release elsewhere, the film was classified as a video nasty by the Director of Public Prosecutions and subsequently banned in the U.K.
Contains examples of the following tropes:
- Angry Guard Dog: Mary is accompanied by an extremely aggressive and perpetually angry Rottweiler whom she uses to commit some of her murders, mauling the victims to death.
- Artistic License – Biology: Julia's uncle Father James claims that Mary is no longer an identical twin due to having been disfigured by her skin condition. Unless her DNA has also been altered by said condition, she's still identical to Julia genetically even if she no longer looks identical.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Mary kills a cat off-screen and leaves its corpse on a string to scare Julia's friend Helen before the latter is killed by Mary's dog.
- Beauty Equals Goodness: The good twin Julia is an attractive and genuinely good-natured young woman who works as a schoolteacher for deaf children, while the evil twin Mary is a mean, spiteful, abusive character disfigured by a degenerative skin disease.
- Equal-Opportunity Offender: Anyone can be a potential victim of Mary's homicidal actions, including women, people of color, deaf children, and animals.
- Evil Twin: Mary made her twin sister Julia's childhood a living hell with her sadistic abuse, and when the two meet again in the local mental institution, the whole thing goes horribly wrong and Mary vows to make Julia "suffer as she had suffered."
- Facial Horror:
- Mary's skin disease has left her face looking hideously decayed and falling apart at the seams.
- In the opening sequence, a younger Mary is shown bashing her sister's face to a bloody pulp as the latter sits in a rocking chair.
- Ironic Nursery Rhyme: The score by Riz Ortolani incorporates melodies from various nursery rhymes, tying in to the film's themes of childhood trauma and the juxtaposition of innocence and evil. In addition, Father James sings "Old King Cole" while stalking the landlady Amantha.
- Literary Allusion Title: The film takes its title from a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
- Not Quite Dead: Just as it seems Mary has finally been done in, she suddenly springs back to life and attempts to strangle Julia before finally dying from her wounds.
- One-Book Author: Trish Everly's role as Julia was her only film credit. Likewise, most of the other cast members, with the exception of Jerry Fujikawa, never appeared in any other production beyond this film.
- Recycled Soundtrack: Parts of the score are re-used or remixed from Cannibal Holocaust. Both films share the same composer, Riz Ortolani.
- Sinister Minister: Julia's uncle James is a Catholic priest — who also happens to be Mary's accomplice.
- This Is a Drill: As Mary's dog attempts to break through a door and tear Sam to shreds, he is forced to dispatch the wayward beast with a conveniently-placed power drill to the head.
