User reviews

Beverly Garland is mentally abused by her husband Skip Homeier. She has taken on a job under Kenneth Tobey to make ends meet, but Homeier sees it as another excuse to have a go at her. Garland doesn't know what to do to please Homeier, but her upbringing tells her she must stick with him, despite her best friend Hannah Stone telling her otherwise. When Homeier disappears, and his boss tells her he is about to lose his job because of it, she goes in search of him. She goes to the small rural town he grew up in where she is confronted with his past and even has to deal with rape.

This was the final movie I watched from the 6-movie 'Weird-Noir' DVD set. It is not all that weird and really not all that noir, but more of a psychological horror/exploitation movie. What sets it apart from the rest of the movies is that it seems to have had a (relatively speaking) bigger budget, as well as more talented actors. Homeier is a truly despicable sadist, Garland portrays her naive character well, and Tobey is a solid character actor (I didn't recognize his name, but I've seen his face dozens of times). It also has a longer runtime at 85 minutes, which is too long, the movie has some rather slow sequences and could've used some tightening and more rigorous editing. 65-70 minutes seems like a more appropriate length.

The movie is pretty direct in showing Homeier's mental abuse, and gets downright ugly when it comes to Garland's rape, and especially Homeier's reaction to it (which is filmed really effectively, in probably the best shot of the entire movie). There is also a nice chase sequence between the two which ends in a jukebox repair shop, which does feel kinda weird because it feels like it's filmed in seedy big city alleyways, while it takes place in a small town with less than 1000 inhabitants. But suffice it to say, there is no ambiguity in Homeier's character, and one wonders what Garland saw in him originally that made her want to marry him.

It's a bit of a frustrating watch. The movie has some good things, and the principal actors know their craft well. But it's way too slow, the plot makes no sense in too many places, and it looks flat aside from a few nice shots. According to Garland the movie was frustrating to make as well, with original (one-time) director, Ned Hockman, walking away from the set angrily, leaving Skip Homeier to finish directing the movie. It was her least favorite movie to do. I can't recommend this one. 5/10

Ellen Winslow (Beverly Garland) has had enough of her controlling husband Gerald (Skip Homeier) after he gets all cranky on his birthday because she took a job with a Cliff Kane (Kenneth Tobey), a former business rival of his. He says he wants a divorce and splits, but she goes off to find him when his boss says he might be fired. She starts to delve into his past and realizes everything he has told her is lies. Meanwhile, with hubby nowhere to be found, she starts falling for Cliff. This Oklahoma-lensed flick has a few good scenes and some nice B&W photography. Oklahoma folks will no doubt get a kick out of the locations. The creepiest bit has Ellen trapped inside an organ repair shop while being stalked and the machines turn on. But the plot is too foreign to me in terms of its drama. I mean, the lead lady's big conflict is whether or not she should see someone while -- GASP! -- she is still legally married but separated. How the times have changed!

"Stark Fear" is the story of Ellen Winslow (Beverly Garland), who hungers for affection but finds herself chained to a hate-warped husband Gerald (Skip Homeier.)Once Skip shows up as the husband, there is little doubt where this one will go, as Skip was always scary, even when he wasn't playing scary characters.

Ellen gets a job, which is more than George seems to be able to do, but he disappears in a jealous rage, but Ellen's sense of loyalty and duty won't let her abandon him---she intends to stick by her man---so she goes looking for him in his home town. Gerald attacks her anew, and she is subjected to painful humiliation and abuse by Gerald's best friend, lecherous old Harvey Suggett, at a Comanche tribal dance. The hidden Gerald watches with sadistic delight.

Ellen buries herself in her work, to forget her anguish, and falls in love with her employer, Cliff Kane (Ken Tobey), and they both take a business weekend at the "Little Switzerland" resort in Arkansas, which may or may not feature both yodeling and hog-calling. But Ellen and Cliff, good for them, are not willing to let love slip over into a shoddy affair. Shoddy does not bother Gerald, especially when Hannah Stone is wandering about in her undies.

Ellen tells Gerald that he is too emotionally warped for marriage and divorces him, and to prove she is wrong he tries to kill her. No one can go around calling a Skip Homeier character warped and not expect to pay some consequences. She also learns that he witnessed her humiliation by Harvey Suggett at the Comanche dance.

What's a poor girl to do? Marie Windsor would have cashed Skip's ticket in the first reel.

Ned Hockman's STARK FEAR is yet another obscure low budget "psycho- thriller" heavily influenced by PSYCHO and not just because B-movie babe Beverly Garland resembles Marion Crane while looking at herself in the rear view mirror on her way to a sleazy motel. Husband Skip Homeier (who took over directing when Hockman quit) is a sadistic "pervert" (read homosexual) with a mother fixation and Bev's a plucky masochist who blames herself for everything that happens. When Skip goes missing, she looks for him (God only knows why) in an Oklahoma hometown just this side of DELIVERANCE where she's raped in a cemetery by his childhood friend. Unbeknownst to his ravaged wife, her husband's secretly watching in the shadows of his mother's grave and keeps her bloody bra as a souvenir. He's later holed up in a motel room with her rapist and no explanation's given (connect the dots) as Garland goes home and throws herself into her work where her boss (genre fave Kenneth Tobey) falls in love with her ...but he's got a secret, too, of course. There's no end to this woman's woes.

The IMDb Trivia on the film says it was Beverly Garland's least favorite of all her movies but I don't know why since she gives it all she's got and turns in a sincere performance in a film that's equal parts sleaze and hokum. Bev's best friend actually tells her to stay with her abusive husband rather than end up a spinster like herself and after Garland is raped, she, of course, blames herself and not her attacker. And although she loves him, she won't go all the way with her boss because she's (gasp) still married. Geez Louise. A truly bizarre "shocker" that looks like it's trying to say something, I just don't know what.

I have never considered Beverly Garland to be "smokin' hot" but in this film practically everyone does! Heck, again and again she is raped or practically raped by slobbering perverts and by the end of the film she has a new man in her life. Unfortunately, the film totally sucks--and not just because they try to convince us that Garland is like a pork chop in a pack of hungry wolves!

The film begins with Garland married to an abusive man. He's cruel, jealous, vicious and a step away from killing her. When this dirt-bag disappears from her life, you'd think she be thrilled but she spends much of the film looking for him! Lady--this guy is vile and you're better off without him! Later in the film, she learns that he'd lied about his past. Following some clues, she goes to a Deliverance-like town where the husband grew up and she is constantly trying to understand why he became the man he was. However, in the process, she is practically raped by one of her husband's old "friends" and yet she continues to hang around him or at least not call for help when he keeps attacking her. Eventually, she can't stop him and she is raped on top of a grave--while the husband watches!!!! Yet, her response is to go back home and wonder what made the men act that way!!! In fact, repeatedly throughout the film, Garland seems dumber than a can of tuna and even tries to reconcile with the husband!!! Until she FINALLY wakes up at the end of the film, she is bounced around like a brain-dead pinball. And, in the process, she takes off much of her clothes, there's talk about rape and sexual sadism and it's all a very trashy and stupid mess. This is like a film for sickos where they edited out all the really explicit stuff, so even pervs won't enjoy the mess.

The only ones who might enjoy it are bad movie fans or anyone who might have Beverly Garland and want to see her embarrass herself!! Yes folks, it's THAT bad!! By the way, if you don't know who Garland is, she is a very familiar face to TV, having played Steve Douglas' wife on "My Three Sons" and on such other shows as "Port Charles". All in all, she had almost 200 credits to her long career...yet I bet she NEVER could live down or forget STARK FEAR!!!

Beverly Garland is winning in the role of Ellen Winslow, a young woman married to a vile, insecure man named Jerry (Skip Homeier), who doesn't like that she got a job when he seemingly made enough money to support both of them. Jerry soon disappears, and poor Ellen is obliged to search for the bum when his boss demands that SHE do something about it! Ellen then runs into a variety of sordid, unsavoury characters while falling in love with her new boss, Cliff Kane (the great Kenneth Tobey).

Ellen is the kind of character that would surely anger feminists, as she tends to blame herself for everything. That said, there's no doubt that Beverly still deeply commits herself to this performance. Ellen IS sympathetic, enough so that you wish she'd have more moments where she got tough and stood up for herself. At her lowest point, she gets raped by Jerry's old friend Harvey Suggett while combing his hometown.

Homeier is excellent at making his character truly despicable. Within seconds of meeting him, we're hoping he comes to a bad end. Tobey is as engaging as he's ever been, although even his character has a "history" that may have colored his actions. The supporting cast consists of unknowns, although the guy playing Suggett is suitably creepy, and Hannah Stone has an effective presence as Ruth, Ellens' friend.

Although "Stark Fear" may wear its influence right on its sleeve (right down to leading lady Garland resembling Janet Leighs' Marion Crane), it does have a very seedy atmosphere that helps to carry it through an amusing 86 minute run time. It's no lost classic, but it should entertain lovers of low budget cinema reasonably well.

Seven out of 10.

Beverly Garland finds her husband, Skip Homeier, has abadoned her. When she goes looking for her, she finds a bunch of people whoink he's a swell fellow, and don't understand why he never introduced them to his wife. Eventually she shrugs her shoulders, gets a job, and discovers Homeie is planning to kill he.

I don't undestand why a divorce won't answer. butis set in Texas. The movie seems querulous and whiny, although Miss Garland is not. Perhaps this attitude is due to the fact that the original director, Ned Hockman, quarreled with the cast, en walked off, leaving Homeier to finish the shoot.

This weird little B&W film noir is a low budget tuffy. Beverly Garland gives a strong performance as a very messed up woman with self esteem issues married to a very cruel man. This is not a comedy - it's not even a drama - it is a wow-can-you-believe-this-woman's-luck movie. There is dialogue that makes you laugh right out loud, the direction is clumsy, there times when the score is so wrong for what is going on during the story that you wince - all in all - a fun fest for lovers of strange and offbeat cinema. B-movie actor Kenneth Tobey (the lead in the original The Thing) actually plays the nice guy in this and Garland's husband is one of the most despicable males ever on screen - in fact, aside from Tobey, almost every man in this movie is a sleazy, rapin;, chain smoking drunk. Yep. The film also has great character names that get said a lot - like Harvey Suggett and Cliff Cain. The marriage scenes make Revolutionary Road or Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf look like Neil Simon plays.

The title, date, subject matter and the presence of Beverly Garland and Kenneth Tobey led me to expect a rough, tough woman-in-peril psycho thriller; which it certainly has elements of, the script including words like 'rape' and 'pervert', the rape taking place in the graveyard of a creepy small southern town straight out of 'Deliverance'.

But heroine Ellen Winslow also pulls herself up by her bootstraps and gets a responsible job, and has several heart to hearts with manless female buddy Ruth Rogers. The film's troubled production in Oklahoma shows in the often disjointed and overwritten end product, and it has a wholly inadequate music score that is often either inappropriately jaunty or simply not up the demands of the dramatic moments. But some of the photography is excellent, and most of the supporting cast (presumably recruited locally) turn in memorable work.

I thought I'd give this movie a try. I was curious to see how filmmakers approached spousal abuse - in this case, a man abusing his wife - during the early 1960s. Ellen Winslow's (Beverly Garland) husband Gerald (Skip Homeier) abuses her verbally and physically, and is plotting to kill her. He leaves town, and what does she do? She goes looking for him. Okay, I understand Stockholm syndrome is a real thing, but at the same time, I couldn't help but think she was insane for going on a search to find him. She was putting herself at risk of getting killed. Even if he wasn't plotting to kill her, a man who belittles and puts his hands on his wife has no impulse control, and is therefore unpredictable, so she could end up getting killed either way. I'm usually not bothered by movies that address sensitive topics, but this was probably the most disturbing film I have ever seen. It was so tiresome to watch Ellen's body get violated over and over again. When she's on her quest to find her husband, every man she encounters handles her as if she's a rag doll. The creepiest scene was when she was sitting in a truck with a man who was her husband's friend. He's drinking, she takes the bottle from him and pours it out of the passenger side window where she's sitting, then he yanks the bottle from her, she gets out, stumbles into the middle of a group of Native Americans having a pow wow, and they push her around until she's ejected from their circle. I won't even tell what happens next because it's so horrible. Let's just say, sexual violence occurred, and it happened in a cemetery all places. What drugs were the writers using to think of something that sick??? I thought portraying the Native Americans as being aggressive was racist. Also, the male actors who were chosen to play in the film looked scary. To each their own, but I thought Stark Fear was awful. It was a depressing story with terrible acting and poor editing. For example, when Ellen is at a party, you keep hearing the same woman's laugh. Nope, I'm never watching this again. Dramas that are being made today look like unicorns and rainbows compared to this. It's obvious the film was made with a low budget and that's a shame.

STARK FEAR stars Beverly Garland as Ellen Winslow, the unfortunate wife of the infantile, sadistic maniac known as Gerald (Skip Homeier), whose hateful madness knows no bounds.

Enter Cliff Kane (Kenneth Tobey), the nice man for whom Ellen might have worked, if Gerald had allowed it. Cliff knows all about Gerald's issues, and has had just about enough. When Gerald goes missing, Ellen goes looking for him, and the seedy fun begins.

This is a nice, dark journey behind the facade of a rural small town. Mysterious and sort of creepy, Ellen's search leads her into the underbelly of life. Ms. Garland plays it straight, with increasing desperation. The final revelation is quite satisfying...

The sixties changed the private Life: Mrs. Winslow has trouble. Mr. Winslow, Jerry, too.

He has them in the Job, she has them, because she was offered a job. He seems jealous, because - for him, there ist just one reason, she could want to work! He wants her to quit, to stay at home. Sehr promises. Thema she finds out some new things about him ...

Beverly Garland is totally absorbed in this oil field dark noir like menacing B-movie.She as well as the film are real diamonds in the rough.All familiar class actors who give it their all.In glorious black and white.Watch late night then see Double Deal with Marie Windsor from 1950.

Possibly the ugliest story ever told--in a good way! If you don't understand why the 50's French film critics at Cahier du Cinema despised the "prestige" films and valorized those focusing on the nastiest aspects of human existence you will not see why this film of squalid, disgusting, and RAW human emotions and desires is worth seeing. A truly PSYCHOTIC version of Psycho, rather than a polite or "tasteful" one.

It's One Of My Favorite Movies! This Is Extremely Outstanding!!!!!!

Talk to me about my favourite movie called stark fear??????

The problem here is that the wife feels guilty for all her husband's mishandling of her, and the worse he behaves, the more atrocious his transgressions become, the more she feels that she has failed him and deserves what she gets. Fortunately she has a friend who has some experience as a social worker and who understands the situation better than Ellen herself, since she has had her men and come out of it alive. Ellen very nearly doesn't come out of it alive.

As many have pointed out, this has some bearings on Hitchcock's "Psycho" a few years before, and the character of the thriller is very Hitchcockian. However, Hitchcock would have gone deeper, chiselled out the psychology better, let some details speak for themselves and gone closer into the characters. The result of the missing masterstrokes is a great psychological drama truncated into superficiality, and none of the actors are really allowed to play out, except the two women. It's a very bizarre film with some very odd moments of attempted lyricism and grotesque black comedy, but the result is at least interesting enough. This is too much for 87 minutes, too much is crammed in into too small a space, but at least the conclusion is satisfactory enough.