Stark Fear

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.

"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.

(1962) Stark Fear PSYCHOLOGICAL DRAMA

Co-produced and directed by Ned Hockman has Gerald Winslow (Skip Homeier) scolding his wife, Ellen Winslow (Beverly Garland) for accepting a desk job from his rival Cliff Kane (Kenneth Tobey) during when she was trying to celebrate his birthday. And before he breaks up with her, he gets more rough with her, even slapping her around. And then after she makes a call to Cliff to turn down for a job, it is not long before he scolds her some more before he demands for a divorce. She then confides to her best friend, Ruth (Hannah Stone) pledging for her job back. There is no mention about dividing up assets or the house they use to live in, for Gerald appears to just like disappear. When she is informed by her husband's bosses her husband is this close to getting himself fired, she then goes on a search rant, just so she can tell him of the news. And while she does this dumb thing by visiting the same city where he grew up in, she then gets herself assaulted by an old friend of his we find out later it was all part of Gerald's plan in the first place.

If it was not for Ellen's best friend Ruth, she would have made so many dumb and idiotic choices it would not even be worth mentioning. She neither calls the police when her husband assaults her or that during that era or on that environment the police do not care whether women are assaulted or not. Anyways, the does have a good ending but one would have to go through a lot of nonsense to get their. 5 out of a 10 is a respectable thumbs down for me despite those good things.

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...

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.