FRIGHTMARE
Aspect ratio: 1.75:1
Sound format: Mono
After serving a lengthy prison sentence for acts of murder and cannibalism, a 'fragile' old lady (Sheila Keith) is released into the care of her husband (Rupert Davies) and they retire to a farmhouse deep in the English countryside. But old habits die hard...
One of the great exploitation titles of all time, FRIGHTMARE (1974) has often been described as the UK's answer to "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" (1974) due to its bleak scenario and uncompromising violence, toplined by elderly murderess 'Dorothy Yates' (Keith), who lures unwary victims to her isolated farmhouse with promises of Tarot readings and stabs them to death with various household implements. Davies' daughter from a previous marriage (Deborah Fairfax) suspects Keith is still insane and enlists the aid of her psychiatrist boyfriend (Paul Greenwood). But Keith and Davies have another daughter (Kim Butcher), conceived just before their incarceration, and she's beginning to show disturbing signs of following in her mother's footsteps...
Having infuriated tabloid hacks with his barely-disguised assault on the Christian Right in HOUSE OF WHIPCORD (1974), director Pete Walker conceived the notion of cannibalism in the Home Counties (!) and commissioned a screenplay from "Whipcord" scribe David McGillivray, a critic-turned-scriptwriter who later became an outspoken opponent of British film censorship (watch for his brief, wordless cameo as a white-coated doctor). The result is one of the best British horror movies of the 1970's. True, the fashions have dated badly and there are too many dialogue exchanges in drab apartments, but the film's antiquated charm is difficult to resist. Most of the film's Grand Guignol horrors unfold within Keith's crumbling farm, an Olde Worlde slaughterhouse far removed from the bright lights of the big city. Walker has described his approach as 'modern Gothique', an unsettling antidote to the safe, predictable (but still enjoyable) Hammer formula, and perfectly suited to an era defined by its social and political turmoil.
Production-wise, the film is competent but unexceptional. The young leads are OK, nothing more, though Butcher is suitably unpleasant as the sociopathic daughter, and there are brief, throwaway cameos from British movie stalwarts Leo Genn (THE WOODEN HORSE) and Gerald Flood (PATTON), both cast purely for marquee value. Veteran character actor Davies is particularly impressive as the distraught husband who is incapable (and ultimately unwilling) to curtail his beloved wife's monstrous cravings. Immensely popular at the time due to his role on British TV as Inspector Maigret, he was singled out for special attention by outraged critics, appalled by his involvement in such 'lowbrow' material, though it wasn't the first time this 'respectable' actor had dabbled in exploitation (see also "Dracula Has Risen from the Grave", "Matthew Hopkins: Witchfinder General", "The Oblong Box", etc.). As it turned out, FRIGHTMARE was Davies' last film - he died in 1976.
But the true star of the show is Sheila Keith, an unpretentious, supremely gifted actress who came late to the film business and stayed just long enough to leave an indelible impression on cult movie fans worldwide. As portrayed here, Dorothy Yates' pathetic frailty conceals a ruthless psychopath, capable of the most horrendous atrocities, and the demonic expression which transforms Keith's face as she stalks her helpless victims is as blood-freezing as anything in the genre. Nowhere is this more evident than in an extraordinary sequence - completely unexpected in a British horror movie at the time - when Keith uses an electric drill to mutilate the head of a corpse which she's hidden in the barn...
NB. The original UK trailer is an exploitation gem which refuses to show more than a few brief moments of footage from the film, claiming the rest of it is too shocking for public exhibition!!
