Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny & Girly (1970) Timeline Explained – Every Event in Order

Girly kills Sonny in a panic after he demands to be 'sent to the Angels,' which is the family's euphemism for murder. Sonny, feeling left out of the sexual politics developing between New Friend, Mumsy, and Girly, asks to be killed. Realizing she would lose her partner in the luring scheme and fearing the family's response, Girly bludgeons him to death with an antique mirror to silence him.

Foreshadowing: Earlier scenes show Sonny and Girly working together as a team to recruit victims, establishing their close partnership before the betrayal.

• girly
• sonny
• murder
• antique mirror
• panic

New Friend retrieves the acid-tipped needles that Nanny used in her failed murder attempt and hides them under Mumsy's pillow while she sleeps. He lies in wait, suggesting he plans to kill Mumsy and potentially escape. The ending is ambiguous, leaving his ultimate fate and whether he successfully carries out the killing open.

Foreshadowing: Throughout his time in the manor, New Friend observes and learns the family's violent methods, using their own tactics against them.

• new friend
• mumsy
• acid needles
• ending
• escape

The family lures victims into populated areas using Girly as bait, then kills those who resist or refuse to cooperate. The murders are staged as playground games and referred to as 'sent to the Angels.' Sonny records each killing on a 16mm camera to create snuff films for the family's private collection.

Foreshadowing: The rules of The Game establish that non-compliance results in 'being sent to the Angels,' hinting at the lethal consequences from the start.

• snuff films
• angels
• playground
• murder
• sonny camera

New Friend realizes the only way to survive and potentially escape is to turn the family against each other. After Mumsy makes sexual advances, he sees an opportunity to exploit the household's fragile dynamics. He deliberately sleeps with both women to create jealousy and conflict, hoping their infighting will give him an advantage or opening to act.

Foreshadowing: Mumsy's sexual overtures to New Friend reveal her willingness to break the family's rules, showing the cracks in their controlled environment.

• new friend
• mumsy
• girly
• manipulation
• sexual jealousy

The Game is an elaborate role-playing fantasy where each family member adopts a fixed persona: Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny, and Girly. Everyone must remain in character at all times, and the central rule is 'Rule No. 1: Play the Game.' Those who resist or try to escape are killed. The Game also involves luring men as 'New Friends' and forcing them into the family's twisted domestic fantasy.

Foreshadowing: The manor house is described as a stage where identity is subsumed into the fantasy, establishing the Game's dominance over all interactions.

• the game
• role playing
• rules
• family fantasy

Nanny is consumed by jealousy after being the only female excluded from New Friend's sexual manipulations. While Mumsy and Girly both engage with New Friend, Nanny is left out. In her rage, she attempts to kill Mumsy with needles tipped in acid, though the plan is interrupted by New Friend before she can succeed.

Foreshadowing: Nanny's exclusion from the sexual dynamics becomes apparent as Mumsy and Girly compete for New Friend's attention, building tension in the household.

• nanny
• mumsy
• acid needles
• jealousy
• murder attempt

Girly and Sonny meet a male prostitute and his client at a Swinging London party. They lure both to a playground where they murder the female client by throwing her from a slide. The next morning, they manipulate the hungover man into believing he killed the woman during a drunken blackout. He's then brought to the manor as a 'New Friend' and repeatedly shown his client's body to maintain psychological control over him.

Foreshadowing: The recruitment pattern is established early: Girly uses her attractiveness to lure men, Sonny records everything, and the victims are manipulated into compliance.

• new friend
• prostitute
• manipulation
• captive
• playground murder

After Nanny's acid-needle attack is interrupted by New Friend, Girly retaliates by hacking Nanny to death with an axe. In one of the film's most shocking moments, Mumsy discovers Nanny's severed head cooking in a pot in the kitchen. Mumsy and Girly then sing a macabre rhyme about boiling dead heads, cementing their twisted bond.

Foreshadowing: Nanny's jealousy and exclusion from the household's sexual dynamics foreshadows her violent end and the subsequent consolidation of power between Mumsy and Girly.

• nanny
• axe
• death
• cooking head
• girly

After Sonny is murdered and Nanny is killed, only Mumsy and Girly remain along with New Friend. Recognizing that boredom and direct competition could lead to further violence, they declare a truce and agree to alternate days of the week for sexual access to New Friend. This arrangement maintains a fragile peace while ensuring neither woman completely dominates the other.

Foreshadowing: The truce is foreshadowed by earlier tensions between the women, with New Friend's manipulations exposing the fractures in their relationship.

• mumsy
• girly
• share
• truce
• new friend

After Girly kills Sonny, Mumsy orders New Friend to bury the body beneath a drained fountain on the manor grounds. The area is already marked with makeshift gravestones bearing numerical identities corresponding to previous 'friends' who were 'sent to the Angels.' This graveyard symbolizes the family's long history of murder.

Foreshadowing: The drained fountain and numbered gravestones hint at the scale of the family's criminal operation, showing this is not their first killing.

• sonny
• buried
• fountain
• grave
• manor grounds

'Sent to the Angels' is the family's euphemism for killing those who refuse to participate in The Game or try to escape. The murders are staged as whimsical playground games, with the victims killed in settings associated with childhood innocence. This darkly ironic phrase reflects the family's warped perception of their actions as something pure or justified.

Foreshadowing: The phrase is introduced early as the ultimate consequence of non-compliance, establishing the threat that controls all 'New Friends.'

• angels
• death
• euphemism
• playground games
• murder