Frightmare

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!!

It's 'granny goes gaga' in this genuinely creepy bone-chiller, surprisingly well directed by Peter Walker and penned down by David McGillivray. The power of this 'Frightmare' simply lies in its primitive goal to shock and to disturb the viewer by showing the disastrous fade of poor, innocent victims. *** small spoilers*** The eerie black and white opening sequences introduce us to an elderly couple on trial for a series of savage murders. Dad is pretty much sane and a devoted husband, but mum suffers from cannibalistic characteristics. 15 years later, they're freed from the asylum and declared properly sane. Even though they now live in a quiet farm outside the town and receive many visits from their oldest daughter Jackie, mommy (Dorothy Yates) resumes her old disgusting habits by enticing lonely people to the farm with the offer or reading their futures in cards. Things get even more complex when Jackie's psychiatrist boyfriend digs up matters from the past and the couple's youngest daughter Debbie seems to have inherited mom's relentless sense of cruelty and taste for blood. *** end spoilers *** There's very few background in the story and not even a proper attempt to analyze the psychological elements the plot handles about. Frightmare wants to shock you, and from that viewpoint, it's a very successful package of eeriness. Multiple scenes are loaded with tension and leave you with a very uncanny aftertaste in your stomach. There's quite a lot of offensive gore in the film and the mind-blowing climax skyrocketed the cult-value of this film, back in the early seventies. If you're not too easily petrified, I certainly recommend checking this film out.

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.

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 .

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!