La nuit des alligators

Two thugs, armed with nothing more than a a very small knife, take over a couple's 'love nest' almost at will. They then proceed to 'terrorize' them which consists of nothing more than talking for the next ninety minutes. The only action comes, literally, when one of the thugs takes a sausage out of the refrigerator and eats it.

There is a certain stylish quality mixed in with some 60's kitsch that,at the beginning, gives it a certain avant-garde quality. This though is soon killed by it's very pedestrian script. The thugs go from being child like to dumb and the couple is just plain boring. Why we should have any concern for these people is about as nebulous as to why any of this is even happening. The whole thing is stretched out so much that one is incredulous to believe that the director really thought any viewer would find this even remotely gripping or suspenseful.

Flat and forgettable. The only distinction this has is to see just how boring and uninvolving a film purported to be a 'thriller' can be. It's hard to imagine that there could be anything worse.

This is the only movie I regret not having got up and walked out! Although it is some 30 years since I had the misfortune of seeing this film in the cinema, I have never forgotten what a thoroughly unpleasant experience it was -- with unlikeable characters and stupidly unbelievable circumstances. I can forgive all sorts of things in a film if there is at least one redeeming quality, but you can look in vain for it here. I am amazed that its rating is as high as it is since I would have given it a minus rating were this possible.

This one of a number of movies that were popular in the 60's and 70's (i.e. "Cape Fear", "Kitten with a Whip", "Lady in a Cage", "Wait Until Dark", "Straw Dogs", "Death Game")where complacent middle-class people find their comfortable lifestyles (and often their very lives) threatened by lower-class cretins, who rather being after just the usual things (money, sex), almost seem to have been sent as divine messengers to punish them for their sins. In this particularly nasty example a married, middle-age business man is in his isolated luxury penthouse with his young mistress when the two are attacked by a trio of crazed and seemingly motiveless characters calling themselves "Tom", "Dick", and "Harry" (the latter is a woman brilliantly played by ex-Bond girl Martine Beswick). The criminals soon expose both the immoral lifestyle of the couple and the cracks in their shallow relationship of convenience.

The movie is every bit as sleazy as the more notorious "Straw Dogs" (and it shows what you can get away with in Britain and America if you only adopt the proper moralistic tone). The two men take turns raping Kendall, but a la "Straw Dogs" her rape is portrayed more as a humiliation of her boyfriend than of her as she gets drunk and develops the most rapid case of Stockholm Syndrome in history and thus may be an at least somewhat willing participant.

The movie was no doubt based on a stage play--it has a very limited set and excessive amount of dialogue--and the stageiness gets a little annoying at times. Still it is one of the more interesting films of director Pete Collinson ("Straight on Until Morning", "Fright") who was the three Pete's of British genre cinema (the other two being Pete Walker and Pete Sasdy). Oh yeah, and it has some very uncharacteristic (if pretty tame)nude scenes from Suzie Kendall. Not a bad to kill way an hour and a half overall.

We'll find another link of this scheme in Collinson's filmography by watching OPEN SEASON, FRIGHT, STRAIGHT ON TILL MORNING which the story is not the same but the atmosphere, distrubing, nasty, making the audiences very uncomfortable. But if you have seen FUNNY GAMES - both versions - you'll also think about PENTHOUSE. Among the best home invasion topics films ever. But prepare not to watch this with the parents in law or the youngest in the family. Delicious, nasty, excellent, repugnant. A pure masterpiece. The ending, the very moral ending made me think a little about SNOW THERAPY, around some kind of couple analysis.... The only difference is that in this movie, it is not question of an avalanche but a couple of punks disturbing the peace. If you can go beyond this film if you accept it, maybe you'll succeed with CLOCKWORK ORANGE.

The Penthouse is written and directed by Peter Collinson and is an adaptation from the play The Meter Man by Scott Forbes. It stars Suzy Kendall, Terence Morgan, Tony Beckley, Norman Rodway and Martine Beswick. Music is by John Hawksworth and cinematography by Arthur Lavis.

Alligators and Sharks

Home invasion 1960s style. Story finds Kendall and Morgan as illicit lovers tormented by two deranged intruders in the penthouse apartment they use for their nights of passion. It's a five person play, well for the majority it's a four person production, and it's 99% set in a dimly lighted apartment. Narrative subjects our two hapless lovers to an hour and half of mental cruelty and sexual humiliation.

The two main perpetrators, Tom (Beckley) and Dick (Rodway), are fascinating nutters, they are childlike in a chilling way, yet always they exude a sense of intelligence. They feed off of each other like some double-take twins, and always they have handy a deep meaning monologue or a philosophical justification for the black heart of the human being.

Collinson does a grand job of keeping things claustrophobic, making sure the emotional discord and sense of menace haunts every frame. The camera zooms in and out of focus, something which proves to be a masterstroke for the sex scenes, while the various angles that the camera looks through during the course are suitably nightmarish.

Originally Collinson was at pains to say his movie didn't have a message, but over the years the only thing consistent was his inconsistent viewpoint on the film. It's nigh on impossible not to seek out a message here, the film is just too odd-ball and unsavoury to not court a deeper meaning than the lazy "it's just a thriller" statement that Collinson trundled out upon pic's release.

Pretentious? Absolutely, but this film has the ability to get under your skin, either in a good way to make you ponder, or to utterly irritate you. If someone said to me it's the worst film they have ever sat through, I would understand. Yet for me I felt challenged and uncomfortable, that's the medium of film doing a good job as far as I'm concerned. 7/10