Stark Fear

"Stark Fear" is the story of Ellen Winslow (Beverly Garland), who hungers for affection but finds herself chained to a hate-warped husband Gerald (Skip Homeier.)Once Skip shows up as the husband, there is little doubt where this one will go, as Skip was always scary, even when he wasn't playing scary characters.

Ellen gets a job, which is more than George seems to be able to do, but he disappears in a jealous rage, but Ellen's sense of loyalty and duty won't let her abandon him---she intends to stick by her man---so she goes looking for him in his home town. Gerald attacks her anew, and she is subjected to painful humiliation and abuse by Gerald's best friend, lecherous old Harvey Suggett, at a Comanche tribal dance. The hidden Gerald watches with sadistic delight.

Ellen buries herself in her work, to forget her anguish, and falls in love with her employer, Cliff Kane (Ken Tobey), and they both take a business weekend at the "Little Switzerland" resort in Arkansas, which may or may not feature both yodeling and hog-calling. But Ellen and Cliff, good for them, are not willing to let love slip over into a shoddy affair. Shoddy does not bother Gerald, especially when Hannah Stone is wandering about in her undies.

Ellen tells Gerald that he is too emotionally warped for marriage and divorces him, and to prove she is wrong he tries to kill her. No one can go around calling a Skip Homeier character warped and not expect to pay some consequences. She also learns that he witnessed her humiliation by Harvey Suggett at the Comanche dance.

What's a poor girl to do? Marie Windsor would have cashed Skip's ticket in the first reel.

(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 is winning in the role of Ellen Winslow, a young woman married to a vile, insecure man named Jerry (Skip Homeier), who doesn't like that she got a job when he seemingly made enough money to support both of them. Jerry soon disappears, and poor Ellen is obliged to search for the bum when his boss demands that SHE do something about it! Ellen then runs into a variety of sordid, unsavoury characters while falling in love with her new boss, Cliff Kane (the great Kenneth Tobey).

Ellen is the kind of character that would surely anger feminists, as she tends to blame herself for everything. That said, there's no doubt that Beverly still deeply commits herself to this performance. Ellen IS sympathetic, enough so that you wish she'd have more moments where she got tough and stood up for herself. At her lowest point, she gets raped by Jerry's old friend Harvey Suggett while combing his hometown.

Homeier is excellent at making his character truly despicable. Within seconds of meeting him, we're hoping he comes to a bad end. Tobey is as engaging as he's ever been, although even his character has a "history" that may have colored his actions. The supporting cast consists of unknowns, although the guy playing Suggett is suitably creepy, and Hannah Stone has an effective presence as Ruth, Ellens' friend.

Although "Stark Fear" may wear its influence right on its sleeve (right down to leading lady Garland resembling Janet Leighs' Marion Crane), it does have a very seedy atmosphere that helps to carry it through an amusing 86 minute run time. It's no lost classic, but it should entertain lovers of low budget cinema reasonably well.

Seven out of 10.

This weird little B&W film noir is a low budget tuffy. Beverly Garland gives a strong performance as a very messed up woman with self esteem issues married to a very cruel man. This is not a comedy - it's not even a drama - it is a wow-can-you-believe-this-woman's-luck movie. There is dialogue that makes you laugh right out loud, the direction is clumsy, there times when the score is so wrong for what is going on during the story that you wince - all in all - a fun fest for lovers of strange and offbeat cinema. B-movie actor Kenneth Tobey (the lead in the original The Thing) actually plays the nice guy in this and Garland's husband is one of the most despicable males ever on screen - in fact, aside from Tobey, almost every man in this movie is a sleazy, rapin;, chain smoking drunk. Yep. The film also has great character names that get said a lot - like Harvey Suggett and Cliff Cain. The marriage scenes make Revolutionary Road or Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf look like Neil Simon plays.

Beverly Garland is mentally abused by her husband Skip Homeier. She has taken on a job under Kenneth Tobey to make ends meet, but Homeier sees it as another excuse to have a go at her. Garland doesn't know what to do to please Homeier, but her upbringing tells her she must stick with him, despite her best friend Hannah Stone telling her otherwise. When Homeier disappears, and his boss tells her he is about to lose his job because of it, she goes in search of him. She goes to the small rural town he grew up in where she is confronted with his past and even has to deal with rape.

This was the final movie I watched from the 6-movie 'Weird-Noir' DVD set. It is not all that weird and really not all that noir, but more of a psychological horror/exploitation movie. What sets it apart from the rest of the movies is that it seems to have had a (relatively speaking) bigger budget, as well as more talented actors. Homeier is a truly despicable sadist, Garland portrays her naive character well, and Tobey is a solid character actor (I didn't recognize his name, but I've seen his face dozens of times). It also has a longer runtime at 85 minutes, which is too long, the movie has some rather slow sequences and could've used some tightening and more rigorous editing. 65-70 minutes seems like a more appropriate length.

The movie is pretty direct in showing Homeier's mental abuse, and gets downright ugly when it comes to Garland's rape, and especially Homeier's reaction to it (which is filmed really effectively, in probably the best shot of the entire movie). There is also a nice chase sequence between the two which ends in a jukebox repair shop, which does feel kinda weird because it feels like it's filmed in seedy big city alleyways, while it takes place in a small town with less than 1000 inhabitants. But suffice it to say, there is no ambiguity in Homeier's character, and one wonders what Garland saw in him originally that made her want to marry him.

It's a bit of a frustrating watch. The movie has some good things, and the principal actors know their craft well. But it's way too slow, the plot makes no sense in too many places, and it looks flat aside from a few nice shots. According to Garland the movie was frustrating to make as well, with original (one-time) director, Ned Hockman, walking away from the set angrily, leaving Skip Homeier to finish directing the movie. It was her least favorite movie to do. I can't recommend this one. 5/10