Os Herdeiros do Medo

Even though I was tremendously looking forward to "The Shuttered Room", for a variety of reasons, it pains me to say the film never at one point surpasses the level of mediocrity.

Here are a few reasons why I eagerly anticipated the film: #1 - the source material. The script is adapted from a short story by none other than H. P. Lovecraft. He's one of the greatest authors who ever lived, and his bleak tales always guarantee horrifying denouements. #2 - The cast. Next to the unearthly beautiful Carol Lynley ("Bunny Lake is Missing", "The Poseidon Adventure") and the reliable veteran Flora Robson ("The Sea Hawk", "Wuthering Heights"), the film stars the downright brilliant Oliver Reed in the role that suits him best, namely the brutal and perverted village thug. #3 - the location and set pieces. Although filmed in England, "The Shuttered Room" takes place in New England (= Lovecraft Country), more particularly on a remote little island community. And you know, in horror movies, small islands and their inhabitants are always ominous!

As you see, all the ingredients for a splendid horror-cocktail are there, but regrettably the script is severely lacking. Lovecraft's "The Shuttered Room" is a SHORT story, and maybe that's what went wrong here. Quite obviously, there is something evil in the attic of the old mill, which links back to the childhood trauma of Susanna Whately and the family curse auntie Agatha keeps raving about, but the script prefers to conceal this vital aspect until the climax. Instead, it's a sort of "Straw Dogs" with Lynley and her elderly husband (Gig Young) being pursued and terrorized by the village yokels led by Oliver Reed. Interestingly, "Straw Dogs" only came out four years later and became a massive cult hit. And besides, even when "The Shuttered Room" reaches its long-overdue finale, it's still a massive letdown.

I saw this film years ago when it used to air on independent TV stations in the afternoon & haven't seen it since. Pity because this is a good film. Unfortunately, it never made it to video.

In the early years of Reed's career he did mostly horror films where he was the "true Phantom Menace". He had a distintive glare that became his trademark. Well, he shows all that & then some in this film. This story centers around insanity, murder & family skeletons in the closet or in this case, in the shuttered room.

If you like "Jane Eyre", I think you will like this one.

As stated by several other folks here, I watched this movie with my twin sister when I was about 10 years old on the local station horror movie hour and was terrified by it. I remember it even now, how eerie the whole atmosphere of the movie was and the feeling of Carol Lynley's character being watched by some unseen but evil being, it really scared me as a child and I would love to watch it now to see if it would have the same impact. Probably not, but if you ever get the chance to see this film, I would encourage you to do so. Kind of weird too, Gig Young, who played the husband, went on to murder his wife in real life and then kill himself. Pretty weird.

I mirror the comments of the plethora of those before me. Saw this as a 9-year-old on the telly and it stayed with me for a long time. The suffocatingly Gothic overtones, lovingly twisted POV camera-work, evocative jazz score and wonderfully creepy, dilapidated locations still spiral through my brain from time to time. Perhaps most memorable are Oliver Reed's warped, leering eyes staring at a helpless Carol Lynley through the dollhouse window, which has to be one of the more simultaneously terrifying and arty shots from any horror movie of the past 30 years.

This is a flick where the sum of the parts may not quite match the individual moments, but what a bunch of moments they are. The extended cat and mouse stalking of Lynley, the bizarre and frightening secret in the basement, Gig Young and Oliver Reed's spot-on hammy genre acting, the moody cinematography; it all adds up to a movie any fan of Gothic or horror will definitely want to check out. Surprisingly tense and graphic given the era; easily one of the more suggestively violent movies I ever saw on local channels during daylight hours in the 1970s, and considerably more graphic than PSYCHO but clearly owing a debt to it. Quintessential movie for Oliver Reed and Carol Lynley fans; among their best, most interesting work on celluloid.

I too watched this film as an elderly child/young adult. Up to about the late 1970's, 'The Shuttered Room' was staple late-night stock on BBC 1 and ITV, usually on a Friday or Saturday night. Then, for some reason it has never shown again to date in this country, at least to my knowledge that is.

From memory (it is a long time ago, so forgive me, for any inaccuracies!)the movie(based on a story by HP Lovecraft) is supposed to be set in a small and isolated New England fishing village (it's really shot Cornwall in England) and concerns a young well-heeled woman (Carol Lynley), returning to her roots from a posh life in the big city, with her new husband (Gig Young), fter inheriting a (supposedly) abandoned and creepy old millhouse, that she used to live in as a child. Within that house, at the very top, hidden from normal view, is a heavily locked/bolted/nailed/chained mysterious room, that within contains a dreadful, appalling secret!!!

Back to the village, which appears to contain a lot of backward old yokels/hicks putting on dodgy American regional accents - as Lynley and Young appear to be the only actual American actors in it! Also there, lurks a gang of country bumpkinish uneducated thugs, led by a young and smouldering Oliver Reed. Reed and his cronies take an immediate and intense sexual interest in Lynley, and dislike to the monied, well-dressed, big car driving city boy Young.

Without spoiling the main plot (as one day, hopefully, the movie may be shown again), events progress with Lynley meeting up with her old Aunt (Aunt, I think) (Dame Flora Robson) who lives at the top of big tower, and who makes Norman Bates's mother appears sociable and outgoing! Robson is overseer and controller of what is in the shuttered room, that all too soon, the overly inquisitive Carol, will discover to her and everybody else's cost!

The climax to the film, is genuinely terrifying (well it was when I was 12!) and involves the nasty Reed and his cronies, pursuing Gig Young in a thrilling drive-you-off-the-road car chase, through Cornish country lanes, as he races back to try to get to Carol.

The actual end of the film centres on........on..... well, I can't tell you that now can I???

Suffice to say, many may mock the quality of director David Greene's Sixites flick, as typical of the sort of low(er) budget horror shocker movies that were made in great number then. But I think 'The Shuttered Room' had/has a lot more going for it than that, and if somebody would release it to the world again, would even today, be seen by many, as a well-made, well-acted (apart from the accents!) and genuinely scary piece of work.