Frightmare

This is one those horror movies that is totally unique. It is a cannibal movie, but it humanizes the cannibals more than any other movie I've seen. They're not rampaging monsters like in "Texas Chainsaw" or stereotypical Third World savages like in the later Italian gut munchers--they're the ordinary people living right next door--and this makes them all the more frightening.

The director is Pete Walker, who found an interesting niche in 1970's British horror/exploitation movies between the hedonistic youth of "Swinging London" and the repressive, reactionary forces that were moving in to stop the party. Walker managed to appeal to both audiences with his "House of the Whipcord", a film both startlingly reactionary and irredeemably sleazy. This film, however, is instead a pox on both houses. There are two cannibals here--one is a seemingly kind old matron (Sheila Keith) who lures victims to her isolated country estate with tarot card readings. She is unwittingly accommodated by her weak-willed husband and well-intentioned step-daughter. She represents a truly twisted version of what American conservatives would later call "family values". The other cannibal is equally frightening--an innocent looking adolescent girl (Kim Butcher) flouncing around in a miniskirt or knickers, coyly manipulating both rough motorcycle-riding youths and respectable older men. She represents the free-spirited and cheerfully amoral youth of the era. It is Walkers genius to ultimately put these two monsters in cahoots. The relationship between them turns out to be very twisted and very close indeed.

The movie is very creepy and truly frightening. Its ultimate message is quite bleak. Apparently, Walker was heavily influenced by American film noir when he made this, and this influence is evident in the dark, eerie visuals and bleak, fatalistic tone where the shadow of the past is always casting a pall over the present. This is a genuinely disturbing film, but one I would recommended highly.

This film is typical of early Seventies British horror in its style and format, though this is much more dark, morbid and disturbing than the average example.

The film features a psychotic woman with a penchant for cannibalism, and her equally disturbed family, hiding out as a recluse in a remote English farmhouse following her release from 15 years in an institution.

A few items of gore are presented here (the UK version will be cut by three minutes), but the real beauty of this film is its dark and unnerving undertones, along with its shocking and feel-bad finalé.

There were some great exploitation flicks made in the seventies; but unfortunately, Frightmare isn't one of them. That's not to say it's terrible, or even really bad; as the film definitely does have it's moments, but it's also very talky and the plotting is far too slow, which isn't what you want when you're watching a film that has supposed to have been made to entertain the gore fanatics of it's day. If the entire movie was as good as it's last half hour, I'd be on here praising it to high heaven right now; but for some reason, director Pete Walker has seen fit to make us sit through a sometimes interesting, but more often that not tedious first hour; which doesn't do anything that couldn't have been done in half the time. The plot follows murderer and cannibal by the name of Dorothy, who is sent to an asylum along with her devoted husband Edmund. They are released after fifteen years; and this proves a problem when it seems that the couple's daughter, Debbie, has inherited her mother's lust for killing. Step daughter Jackie tries to sort things out with her father, but that doesn't stop the mother and daughter team getting seriously into cranial DIY...

The atmosphere of the film is superbly sleazy, with the couple's isolated living place taking on the foreboding role of the film's central location. Insanity often makes for a theme that allows a film to present a great atmosphere, and Pete Walker has capitalised on that. Another thing he's capitalised on is power tools. Power Tools would come to great uses again in films such as The Driller Killer, The Toolbox Murders and, of course, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre; and it's obvious why they continue to get used in gory exploitation flicks. Things get very messy when you've got a deranged lunatic brandishing a power drill, and this serves as one of this film's main talking points. Walker makes best of the 'insane granny' theme too, ands he gets his lead actress to show how good she can be in that respect several times in the film. In the final half hour, the film really starts to come together and as the gore increases, the tension mounts and that is when this movie is at it's very best. When the film has to rely on it's script for intrigue; it falls down, and that pretty much sums up the first hour. I'd like to like this more; but just so you know, once the first hour has elapsed; you're in for a treat!

It deals a psychopatic mum and her husband who have been locked at a mental institution for crimes they have previously committed . After long years, the vicious couple : Sheila Keith , Rupert Davies are freed , living at an easy and isolated farm . But then things go wrong , going on a criminal spree .If you like this , have you brain examined ! ..more than a bad dream ! World than you most shocking nightmare ! Daré you see the film that shocked the critics ? Far beyond a nightmare . What terrifying craving made her kill ... and kill..and kill...

Scary terror movie with disturbing chills , eerie intrigue , twisted suspense and violent events with gory scenes . It is far better written and played than you might expect , if the first part with two daughters living apart from them results to be slow-moving as well as boring, lacking exposition, but when appears the creepy marriage : Sheila Keith and Rupert Davis things get better . It packs a simple and basic formula , with neither deep exploration of characters , no analysis of environment or circumstances , but massacres without much sense. With "Frightmare" following on "House of Whipcord" , David McGillivray's scriptwriting is undoubtedly having a marked effect on Peter Walker's pictures . Main and support cast provide decent interpretations . Sheila Keith gives a nice acting as the ruthless mom who has the scary habit of going after victims with a drill or knife before devouring them raw , while Rupert Davies is fine as her faithfully hubby .

This gory picture was professionally directed by Peter Walker . He was an expert on Terror movies , though he also made other genres and TV series . As Peter Walter directed the following ones : " House of the long shadows , Home before Midnight , The Comeback , Schizo , House of Mortal Sin, House of Whipcord , Frightmare , Tiffany Jones" . Most his films used to settle for routine or run-of-the-mill storylines, however , nowadays teem with demonic life and made in exploitation style . Peter Waker's "Nightmare" filmmaking is on another level , altogether from " Cool it Carol ¡" or "The Flesh and Blood Show" . Rating : 6/10 . Acceptable and passable though it tends to leave a highly unpleasant aftertaste .

Peter Walker, the director of this notorious British horror film, said that he wanted audiences to leave the cinema feeling angry and frustrated after seeing it. He succeeds.

Unpleasant and cynical though "Frightmare" may be, it is brilliantly made and cleverly written. We move between two worlds, of 70s juvenile delinquency in the heart of London and the chintzy, old-fashioned farmhouse inhabited by Rupert Davies and Sheila Keith. What unites both worlds, shockingly, is violence and murder.

There are other dualities in the film. There is the generation gap, between the elderly couple and their children and the gender gap, for here is a horror film where it is women who are the aggressors and the men are impotent onlookers or helpless victims.

The acting is remarkably good, right down to the bit parts, such as the hapless little man (played by Andrew Sachs of "Fawlty Towers" 'Manuel' fame)who is the first victim, in the film's moody, black-and-white pre-credit sequence. But the real honours are stolen by Sheila Keith, at times pathetic, at times terrifying as Mrs Yates and by Rupert Davies as her defeated, despairing husband.

Parts of the film look a little cheesy and dated but it is still a remarkably powerful work. The music score is a bonus too - in place of the usual screeching brass, Stanley Myers score is subtle, eerie and menacing.

I can't really recommend this film as "fun" viewing and it is light years away from the comforting certainties of Hammer's Gothic tales, where good always conquers evil. But "Frightmare" is that rare beast - a genuinely disturbing and unnerving horror film.