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In London, the twenty-two year-old Peggy Heller (Judy Geeson) meets and marries the school teacher Robert Heller (Ralph Bates) after recovering from a nervous breakdown. Robert works in the countryside in a private school owned by the headmaster Michael Carmichael (Peter Cushing), who is married with Molly Carmichael (Joan Collins). On the eve of moving to the country with her husband, Peggy spends the night at the board house of Mrs. Beamish (Gillian Lind) and is attacked by a man with mechanical arm in her room. Mrs. Beamish calls the doctor but they do not believe in Peggy. On the next morning, she heads with Robert to the country and moves to the cottage in the school. But soon Peggy is attacked by the same man but Robert does not believe in her. Then she meets The Headmaster and realizes that he has a mechanical arm. What will happen next?

"Fear in the Night" is an intriguing and mysterious thriller by Hammer with Judy Geeson in the lead role. The storyline is good but could have more characters to increase the mystery of the identity of the attacker. But it is worthwhile watching this thriller. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Um Grito Dentro da Noite" ("A Scream in the Night")

Sangster's third and final film as director forsakes the Gothic trappings of the first two for the psycho-thrillers which Hammer occasionally dabbled in (inspired by LES DIABOLIQUES [1954] and kick-started by the Sangster-penned TASTE OF FEAR [1961]).

As such, it's a pretty solid entry in the genre: well-made (the last half-hour being especially tense), stylish (making subtle use of elliptical editing, careful not to go overboard as was the case with STRAIGHT ON TILL MORNING [1972]) and sporting a compact but most able cast - Judy Geeson (her inherent vulnerability is suited to this type of frightened lady role), Joan Collins (going through a horror/thriller phase at the time and who's, of course, alluringly bitchy), Ralph Bates (it took me some time to accept him in a modern setting since he's so comfortably placed in the Gothic world of his other stuff for Hammer, but there's no denying that he does quite well by his role here!) and Peter Cushing (superlative as always, he has a field day with an ambiguous characterization); incidentally, Cushing and Collins must be one of the most incongruous husband-and-wife pairings in film history!

As one can gather from the above, I liked the film quite a bit and, in fact, pondered for a while the notion of awarding it a *** rating but was, ultimately, deterred from doing so by a couple of flaws: the 'ingenious' plot is, actually, fairly predictable (but, if anything, it's even more fun to be able to anticipate the many twists involved!); however, this also means that one has to labor through a first half that is both slow and repetitive!! I do feel that it's underrated in the Hammer canon: Leonard Maltin dismisses it, for instance, but Leslie Halliwell - not usually one to bother much with the company's latter-day output - is surprisingly complimentary in his review.

While FEAR IN THE NIGHT more or less adheres to Hammer's formula for this type of film - an innocent girl having a brush with murder and madness in remote surroundings - it also draws parallels to the contemporary giallos, especially with its device of a black-gloved stalker. Incidentally, of Hammer's 10 modern suspensers, I've only got two more to catch up with - MANIAC (1963) and CRESCENDO (1970).

The Audio Commentary here proves disappointing - not because it isn't informative but, rather, due to the fact that we get an awful lot of repetition of Sangster's anecdotes from his tracks for THE HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN (1970) and LUST FOR A VAMPIRE (1971); to be fair to him, the fault lies more with moderator Marcus Hearn - who should have come up with a fresher set of questions, as it were. Then again, I'd have expected more insight into the actual construction of the script (a psycho thriller being, fundamentally, more intricate than a Gothic horror) - but it's safe to assume that, after all these years, Sangster recalls precious little about this aspect...although he does mention that he had pitched the script to the company as early as 1963, and that it was originally intended to be set on a boat! The discussion also touches upon Hammer's other suspensers: apart from citing TASTE OF FEAR and THE NANNY (1965) as his favorite films, Sangster mentions that Orson Welles turned up unannounced one day on the set of MANIAC; in connection with the film under review - which, incidentally, brought Sangster's fortuitous association with Hammer to a close - he acknowledges the fact that Peter Cushing was basically serving the same function (i.e. a red herring) that Christopher Lee did in TASTE OF FEAR.

This Hammer film has remained in the wilderness for years, but thanks to Optimum Releasing, it now has its long awaited DVD release. The back of the box proclaims this film to be the last of Hammer Horror's suspense films, and one of the best - and both of those statements are true! Many of the suspense films that Hammer produced are among the best that the studio had to offer - Taste of Fear and Paranoiac being among the finest of them. This film isn't your usual Hammer film or your usual Hammer suspense film and plays out a lot like a Hammer version of Italy's popular Giallo sub-genre. Hammer Horror would go on to make a lot of films that took influence from the more lurid Eurohorror imports in the seventies, and while this shift in focus didn't always serve them well - it certainly does here! The plot focuses on a boy's school. Peggy Heller is recovering from a nervous breakdown, and she goes to stay at the school with her teacher husband Robert. Upon arrival, she discovers that the school is run by headmaster Michael Carmichael, and she soon becomes the victim of murderous attacks by a one-armed man. However, nobody believes her...

It has to be said that the plot runs rather slowly for the first hour, with the hapless victim being attacked a couple of times and facing disbelief from both her husband and the wife of the headmaster. It's always interesting, however, and this slow burning first half soon gives way to a more furious final third, where revelations about the school and its headmaster become the forefront of the story and give way to a delicious double twist. The film features performances from three big stars of British horror - the sinister Ralph Bates is perfect as the husband, while the beautiful and deadly Joan Collins provides an extra dimension and things are topped off in style courtesy of a great performance from Hammer's main man Peter Cushing. Judy Geeson holds her own in the lead role also, and the film certainly doesn't come a cropper on the acting front. It has to be said that the final twist is somewhat predictable considering the film's genre, but it's carried off well and the way that the tale concludes is both clever and exciting. Overall, Fear in the Night might not have gained the same amount of praise as Hammer's more popular offerings - but it's a damn good film and I'm glad I saw it!

"Fear in the Night" is a somewhat contrived and lesser Hammer picture from 1972 that somehow still manages to work up a fair amount of suspense and one or two chilling moments. The film concerns young Peggy Heller (excellently portrayed by Judy Geeson), who, after suffering a nervous breakdown, moves with her new teacher husband to a large, private boys' school on 1,200 acres of English countryside. Poor Peggy is soon made the victim of a string of attacks by a stalker with a prosthetic hand, and her lot is hardly made more comfortable by the presence of the very strange headmaster (Peter Cushing) or his haughty young wife (Joan Collins). The film builds to a surprise ending of sorts that probably won't surprise many, especially those viewers who have already seen a certain classic Vincent Price horror movie from 1958. Still, the film does offer some compensations, including very fine performances by the actors just mentioned, as well as by Ralph Bates, playing Peggy's husband. Viewers will appreciate just how fine the acting is, perhaps, after a second viewing, with a greater knowledge of all the characters' secret motivations. The film also offers some beautiful scenery, both in terms of the autumnal Hertfordshire countryside AND Ms. Collins herself. Thirty-nine years old here, and nine years prior to incarnating TV's ultimate bitch on wheels, Alexis Carrington Colby Dexter, etc. on "Dynasty," she really is quite gorgeous to look at. (Sadly, she and Cushing, though playing man and wife, share no screen time whatsoever in this picture.) But the film belongs to Geeson, who appears in every single scene (with one major exception). Just five years after her "To Sir, With Love" debut, she turns in a very credible and ingratiating performance. Indeed, it is the sterling acting by all four principals that elevates this rather pedestrian thriller into something quite admirable indeed.

Pretty, neurotic newlywed Peggy (Judy Geeson) survives an attack by a leather-gloved, one-armed assailant the day before she is due to leave London to live with her husband Robert (Ralph Bates) who teaches at a posh boys school in the country owned by sinister headmaster Michael Carmichael (Peter Cushing) and his bitchy young wife (the lovely Joan Collins).

Once there, though, poor Peggy soon realises that, even though she is now miles from the city, she still isn't safe: the one-armed maniac appears to have followed her to her new home...

It shouldn't take seasoned fans of psychological thrillers very long to suss that the mysterious goings on in Hammer's Fear In the Night are intended to turn the protagonist completely insane, drive her to murder, or both. But although the film's plot doesn't earn many points for originality, being heavily reminiscent of the French thriller Les Diaboliques, director Jimmy Sangster delivers enough startling imagery (Cushing's shattered glasses; a gloved prosthetic arm) and well-handled scenes of suspense to ensure that the film is certainly never dull: from its wonderful opening credits sequence, in which the camera pans across the school to eventually reveal the legs of a man hanging from a tree, to its tense denouement, Fear in the Night is a solid slice of macabre entertainment.

Although this is certainly not one of their more famous titles, I was actually quite impressed with this Hammer movie which is an interesting variation on the famous French thriller "Diabolique" but with four main characters instead of three. Judy Geeson is a naive schoolmarm who marries a man (Ralph Bates) who she thinks is also a schoolteacher but actually turns out to be the caretaker of an abandoned boys' school and its mentally unstable former headmaster (Peter Cushing). The headmaster in turn has a shrewish, grasping wife (Joan Collins)who spends her time cruelly blasting cute bunnies with a double-barreled shotgun. Without giving too much of the plot away, two of the characters are having an affair and scheme to drive another of the characters insane so he/she will kill the fourth character. But as usually happens, the plan goes horribly awry for almost everyone involved.

This is one of the more interesting 70's Hammer films because it actually tries to do something new rather than just mining the old Gothic formulas and monsters that served them so well in the 60's. Hammer had of course done psychological thrillers like this as early as "Scream of Fear" in 1961, but this is one kind of film that they actually refined and perfected in the 1970's (rather than beat like dead horse)with entries like this, "Straight on Until Morning", and the Gothic/psycho-thriller "Demons of the Mind". It was definitely better than Jimmy Sangster's first directorial effort "Lust for a Vampire", even though the latter was much more famous (probably owing to Yutte Stensgaard pulling her two Danishes out every five minutes). It will probably never be regarded as a Hammer classic, but is interesting film at least, which is more than can be said of a lot of their 70's product

It took Peggy Heller a long time to recover from the trauma of a brutal physical assault, suffered in her youth. When she married Robert, he provided her with the love and reassurance she craved for and the two settled down in a pretty house in the grounds of the public school where Robert was a master. But the headmaster of the school is not what he seems and Penny is convinced he means to harm her - is her fear a figment of her tortured imagination or are there forces at work that intend to manipulate her anxieties with fatal consequences?

Fear in the night, a suspense thriller with sinister undertones, benefits greatly from Judy Geeson who is mesmerising as a woman who had suffered a nervous breakdown, and is quite mentally fragile. The plot is pleasingly twisted and the climax suitably dramatic. It's a bit drawn out in the end, but it's an efficient thriller that is about uncertainty around what is real and what is imaginary. There are good performances from Peter Cushing and Joan Collins. It's well-handled by Freddie Francis, the prowling camerawork is effective, and the tension is well constructed till the end.

Strong 'Hammer' film production with a super strong cast, Peter Cushing, Ralph Bates and Judy Geeson but it's a fab Joan Collins, who steals the movie (with a chilling performance) as an evil, scheming seductress. Not the usual from this highly productive studio.

A great story and cast! A suspenseful horror-thriller! Worth watching if you like the classics! The casting in this movie is wonderful - everyone was great in this movie. Judy Geeson plays Peggy Heller so wonderfully... I felt so sorry for her. Ralph Bates plays Robert Heller a man who seemly is in-love with his young wife Peggy. Joan Collins plays Molly Carmichael - snooty rich woman. Peter Cushing is The Headmaster Michael Carmichael - a strange gentleman.

The movie does build an amount of suspense and it does have it's thrilling moments. It makes a wonderful late-at-night film. Not overly scary but definitely suspenseful and thrilling!

8.5/10

By the 70s hammer's great atmospheric horror and thriller movies were starting to lose some of their luster. Not all of them mind you. But this one is one of those that illustrates the decay. The ending leaves some loose ends and doesn't satisfy. Even the presence of Peter Cushing and Joan Collins can't really transform this one in a winner. The plot is good but the interpretation is unconvincing and the film fails to create the classic "ambiance" of earlier heammer classics. Still very much watchable for hammer fans though. But shouldn't be too high on a watching priority list.

Often effective British thriller features a tip-top cast(Joan Collins, Peter Cushing, Ralph Bates, Judy Geeson), but suffers from a lack of originality as this is, for the most part, a rehash of similar motifs explored in earlier British horror films like PARANOIAC and NIGHTMARE, which themselves derived from the brilliant French thriller DIABOLIQUE. Still, the good outweighs the bad and there are plenty of nice, genuine jolts.

'Fear in the Night' is a British psychological horror film from the 1970's released by Hammer films with a decent plot, some interesting twists, and turns and a creepy yet effective secluded location that gives this movie plenty of dread and atmosphere. The movie is quite underrated as its one of the later Hammer films and the central 4 characters are interesting enough to sustain momentum, but the pacing could have perhaps been a little tighter as it does slow down during the middle section, but the dramatic climax more than makes up for it.

The plot = A young woman named Peggy Hiller (Judy Geeson) is recovering from a nervous breakdown and finds herself being terrorized by a mysterious one-armed man, but nobody believes her. Peggy moves with her husband Robert (Ralph Bates) to a boy's boarding school where they are greeted by Molly (Joan Collins) & her husband who's the headmaster (Peter Cushing), but soon Peggy finds herself being attacked again by the same man.

This movie is a good effort with quality production design and great direction by Jimmy Sangster who demonstrates slick camera work and even manages to throw in some effective shocks into the mix. This is certainly not one of Hammer's better horror offerings, but there is enough here to enjoy especially the excellent performances from the small cast.

Judy Geeson gives a strong performance as the female lead; Joan Collins gives a delightful and twisted performance and is always a joy to watch. Ralph Bates gives a stand performance as the husband and the legendary Peter Cushing gives a stellar performance as the creepy headmaster.

Overall 'Fear in the Night' is a pleasantly twisted and overly dramatic horror film from the 1970's that may be a little slow moving, but has a decent payoff.

Peggy Heller (Judy Geeson), a mentally fragile young woman, and her husband Robert (Ralph Bates) move to a rural and secluded residential school for boys, a place where he has gained employment. Mr Carmichael (Peter Cushing), the headmaster, is a strange and creepy chap with a prosthetic arm, he is married to Molly (Joan Collins), on the surface a very odd and mismatched couple. Poor Peg is subjected to a night of terror when Rob has to go on a trip to London. The opening credits scene has the sound of children singing whilst the camera pans across empty playing fields before coming to rest at a tree, the lower half of a man's body hanging from it. A very impressive start! Sadly I found the pace to be quite slow for the bulk of the running time, not a great deal happens in terms of horror. The finale is worth the wait, a tad predictable but enjoyable none the less. Small but good cast. Cushing gives a memorable performance as always, we don't get to see a great deal of him but his voice is often present, even when he isn't. Ralph Bates, good actor who appeared in several Hammer movies. Joan Collins is fine as the devious and nasty wife, I'd use the word that can also mean a female dog but my review would most likely be rejected! Films in which young women were subjected to a night of terror when they are home alone were popular in the early 1970's, this psycho thriller/ horror is not a standout example but even so it is still worth a watch, makes a change from Hammer's Gothic output (which was nearing its demise at this point). The old school building does provide a touch of Gothic. The lake that was used in so many of the studio's films is present but instead of horses galloping around it and over the old brick bridge we get a Land Rover instead.

"Fear in the Night" is a 1970s British horror film made by Hammer Film Productions. Unlike many of Hammer's offerings from this period, however, this one is not a tale of vampires and werewolves set somewhere in a historic Mitteleuropa. It is a psychological thriller set in contemporary Britain and with Hitchcockian overtones, down to a trademark blonde heroine in distress.

The young heroine, Peggy, has recently married Robert Heller, a schoolmaster. Robert teaches at a boys' boarding school in the Home Counties, and the newlyweds will live in his house in the grounds of the school. The night before she is due to move down to the school, however, Peggy is attacked in her London home by a mysterious figure with a prosthetic arm. She survives, but is badly shaken.

The following day Peggy and Robert move into their new home. We immediately notice that there is something odd about the school. From the colours of the leaves on the trees it is clearly October or November, when the boys should be at school, but the school is empty. (In Britain the autumn term starts in early September and does not end until mid-December). The only other people on the premises are the headmaster Michael Carmichael, who also has a prosthetic arm, and his much younger wife Molly. Molly is beautiful but cold and distant, and she and Peggy take an instant dislike to one another. When Peggy is again attacked by the mystery assailant with the prosthetic arm, she becomes convinced that Michael is trying to kill her. Or is he? The story ends with a couple of twists which reveal that things are not what we have been led to believe. (I won't reveal what those twists are). Today twists like these have become stale and hackneyed through overuse, especially in the eighties and nineties. In 1972, however, they probably seemed much fresher and more original.

There is a particularly atmospheric opening sequence. On a dank autumnal day we see shots of the outside of the school while an unseen choir of boys voices sing the traditional beginning-of-term hymn, "Lord, behold us with thy blessing, once again assembled here". The use of this hymn is doubtless intended to be ironic; the only people assembled here are not the boys but Michael, Molly, Robert and Peggy, and some of them are assembled for purposes which most definitely would not receive the Lord's blessing. The camera then continues to pan around the school grounds, finally coming to rest upon a corpse hanging from a tree. At this stage we do not see whose corpse this is, but we will find out at the end of the film. This haunting, unsettling atmosphere is something that will persist throughout the film.

This could have been no more than a mundane twist thriller, but it has the benefit of four very good performances from its stars- Peter Cushing as the strange, tormented Michael, Joan Collins as the icy Molly, Ralph Bates as the seemingly calm and rational Robert and Judy Geeson as the haunted, psychologically fragile Peggy. (We learn that she suffered a nervous breakdown a few months before her marriage). This is a gripping thriller, still worth seeing more than fifty years on. 7/10.

"Fear in the Night" has a familiar plot (people move into country house and strange things start happening). Set in a boarding school in the British countryside, the movie doesn't quite live up to its potential, but has some neat surprises along the way. Maybe I should have predicted the ending, but I didn't. The movie's strength seems to be mostly in its gradual revelation of things, and the case of a possible mental breakdown.

And the cast? Well, Peter Cushing - as the headmaster - obviously adds a good dimension with his eerie stare. I guess that by 1972, it was a given that any English horror movie had to star Peter Cushing and/or Christopher Lee. Judy Geeson, as the tormented young bride, is gorgeous as ever and has the perfect appearance for someone seeking into despair. Ralph Bates, as her husband, is pretty routine. Joan Collins, as the headmaster's wife, is also pretty routine.

So, for the most part, there's nothing particularly special about this movie, but it's not terrible by any stretch. It's probably a must for Hammer fans. Oh, and Judy Geeson is really hot.

Peggy (Judy Geeson), a recently married young woman, plans to move with her new beau Robert (Ralph Bates) to a secluded boy's school near London where he is set to teach. The night before they travel, she is attacked from behind by a man with a prosthetic arm, who strangles her but leaves her alive. Awakening in a panic, the attack is put down to her recent mental health issues and they later arrive at the deserted school. There she meets the ghoulish headteacher Michael Carmichael (Peter Cushing), a one-armed man with a shadowy demeanour, and his bitch wife Molly (Joan Collins).

Directed and co-written by one of Hammer's driving forces, Jimmy Sangster, Fear in the Night sees Hammer at the very end of their life (before their recent resurgence), when they were struggling at the box-office and failing to bring in their young target audience. Interestingly, the film favours the slow-build, creeping atmosphere of their early thrillers, and not the blood and guts approach they adopted during their most prolific years. Sadly, Fear in the Night's ponderous narrative is not saved by it's more European approach, and the film is a pretty dull affair for the most part.

The notable lack of red-herrings means that it doesn't take long for the audience to figure it all out, and there's plenty of time to piece it together given the length of time dedicated to Peggy plodding around investigating her strange experiences. The performances are as solid as you would expect however, with Cushing managing to steal the film with a relatively small amount of screen time, and Geeson is perfectly charming as the unassuming lead, which makes it all the more tragic that the ensemble weren't handed more to run with. Notably lacking in the Gothic atmosphere that audiences used to flock to experience, or any atmosphere at all really, this was one of Hammer's final whimpers before tragically folding.

A Hammer film from the latter part of the studio's days. A woman with a history of mental illness is beset by visitations of a person in trench-coat & gloves who repeatedly acosts her, but is she just suffering from delusions again? very VERY slow moving.

My Grade: C-

Extras: just a commentary & the theatrical trailer

Boy, do I feel like I'm going to get into trouble for this review... Do you ever watch a film and don't enjoy it, only to go and see everyone else absolutely seemed to love it? Well, it looks like 'Fear in the Night' is going to be one of those films for me.

First of all, let me say that I love Hammer horror films, plus I'm a huge fan of Peter Cushine. Therefore, I was more than happy to invest my time into watching a film where a young woman gets attacked by a one-armed man the night before she moves to an old boys' boarding school in order to help her husband teach there.

That's the basic premise of the film. The cast isn't huge. You have the young couple (Ralph Bates and Judy Geeson), the headmaster of the school (the legendary Peter Cushine) and his young wife Joan Collins. Therefore, you'll probably have a reasonable idea who the attacker is (although possibly not why things are happening the way they are).

The cast is great and the premise, although nothing that special, is fine for a horror movie. However, what really got me was the amount of time spent simply wandering around from room to room in various buildings. The film is about an hour and a half long and at least half of that is spent watching a character walk about quietly. It's like the story should have only been about thirty minutes long and they had to find a way of padding it out to a full feature film's length.

In short, most of it was kind of dull. It wasn't until the very last part of the final act did things pick up enough to peak my interest. It's probably because of what happens when you find out what's really happening that the film has been given such a high score by many. And, I will agree that the ending is pretty good/clever, but it's just a shame you have to wade through so much boring 'filler' to get there.

If you're happy to watch something that is probably the slowest 'slow-burner' ever made in order to get to the good stuff then this is definitely for you. Now I know the outcome I really don't need to watch it again.

Ok, I honestly don't understand all these bad avaliations and this low rating. I wouldn't have seen this - and some other low rated hammer cilms - if it wasn't for my Hammer dvd box set. I loved the story from beginning to end, it's pleasing to watch, it is thrilling and mysterious, and though the endih is somehow a little disappointing, I still enjoy the way it went. Judy Geeson is at her best here and god i love Ralph Bates in here as well. Don't listen to thesw bad avaliations, I realy recommend you to give it a try. Okay, might not be one of hammer's masterpieces but come on! Probably even one of my favorites to be honest. Also I believe it's one of the most unfairly underrated films I've seen. Had to watch it again and i confirm it! I love it.

The overall suspense and mystery of the story for Fear in the Night is particularly strong. The atmosphere is haunting, putting me a bit in mind of The Cure's Charlotte Sometimes video, where a young girl has a supernatural time travel experience to 100 years earlier wandering around an empty boarding school. I wonder if this film was one the inspirations for that music video.

Joan Collins is the usual evil Joan Collins caricature she portrays in nearly every film I've ever seen her in, but I must admit she was STUNNING. Collins was nearly 40 at the time of the release of this film and she barely looks maybe 30 at most.

Judy Geeson is a complete rock star with her meaningful silences and horrified expressions.

One of Hammer Films' ventures into the psychological horror realm, Fear in the Night is more fun than frightening. Plot has Judy Geeson as a young woman recovering from a nervous breakdown who moves with her husband to a boys' school. Once there she appears to be once again terrorized by a man with an artificial arm, but nobody believes her.

Peter Cushing, Ralph Bates and Joan Collins also star, in what has to be a candidate for weakest of the Hammer psychological series of films. Things are not helped by it coming off as a cheap knock off of Hammer's own superlative "Taste of Fear 1961", a picture that firmly delivered on its promise.

Fear in the Night starts off promisingly, with a genuinely scary set-up, and once Geeson and Bates arrive at the boys school it's ripe for chills and suggestion. Unfortunately, the premise of Geeson being menaced in what is essentially a four character piece quickly wears thin - with Cushing badly under used in the process.

Atmosphere is fine, director and co-writer Jimmy Sangster always had a good eye and ear for uneasy dread. While the small cast give it a good whirl to make the modest intentions shine brighter. But ultimately it's only a diversion piece that homages better films of its type instead of making its own mark. 5/10