Stark Fear

Ellen Winslow (Beverly Garland) has had enough of her controlling husband Gerald (Skip Homeier) after he gets all cranky on his birthday because she took a job with a Cliff Kane (Kenneth Tobey), a former business rival of his. He says he wants a divorce and splits, but she goes off to find him when his boss says he might be fired. She starts to delve into his past and realizes everything he has told her is lies. Meanwhile, with hubby nowhere to be found, she starts falling for Cliff. This Oklahoma-lensed flick has a few good scenes and some nice B&W photography. Oklahoma folks will no doubt get a kick out of the locations. The creepiest bit has Ellen trapped inside an organ repair shop while being stalked and the machines turn on. But the plot is too foreign to me in terms of its drama. I mean, the lead lady's big conflict is whether or not she should see someone while -- GASP! -- she is still legally married but separated. How the times have changed!

Ned Hockman's STARK FEAR is yet another obscure low budget "psycho- thriller" heavily influenced by PSYCHO and not just because B-movie babe Beverly Garland resembles Marion Crane while looking at herself in the rear view mirror on her way to a sleazy motel. Husband Skip Homeier (who took over directing when Hockman quit) is a sadistic "pervert" (read homosexual) with a mother fixation and Bev's a plucky masochist who blames herself for everything that happens. When Skip goes missing, she looks for him (God only knows why) in an Oklahoma hometown just this side of DELIVERANCE where she's raped in a cemetery by his childhood friend. Unbeknownst to his ravaged wife, her husband's secretly watching in the shadows of his mother's grave and keeps her bloody bra as a souvenir. He's later holed up in a motel room with her rapist and no explanation's given (connect the dots) as Garland goes home and throws herself into her work where her boss (genre fave Kenneth Tobey) falls in love with her ...but he's got a secret, too, of course. There's no end to this woman's woes.

The IMDb Trivia on the film says it was Beverly Garland's least favorite of all her movies but I don't know why since she gives it all she's got and turns in a sincere performance in a film that's equal parts sleaze and hokum. Bev's best friend actually tells her to stay with her abusive husband rather than end up a spinster like herself and after Garland is raped, she, of course, blames herself and not her attacker. And although she loves him, she won't go all the way with her boss because she's (gasp) still married. Geez Louise. A truly bizarre "shocker" that looks like it's trying to say something, I just don't know what.

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...

(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.

Beverly Garland finds her husband, Skip Homeier, has abadoned her. When she goes looking for her, she finds a bunch of people whoink he's a swell fellow, and don't understand why he never introduced them to his wife. Eventually she shrugs her shoulders, gets a job, and discovers Homeie is planning to kill he.

I don't undestand why a divorce won't answer. butis set in Texas. The movie seems querulous and whiny, although Miss Garland is not. Perhaps this attitude is due to the fact that the original director, Ned Hockman, quarreled with the cast, en walked off, leaving Homeier to finish the shoot.