La malédiction des Whateley

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.

The Shuttered Room is an entertaining, sporadically suspenseful mystery-chiller which gets great mileage from a clutch of good performances. Out the four leading characters, only Carol Lynley seems misplaced. Gig Young, Flora Robson and Oliver Reed are all spot-on, especially Reed who simply excels as a lecherous thug. The story is atmospheric and unsettling, though the solution at the end resorts to an overused "monster-in-the-closet" explanation, which actually slightly damages the whole movie.

Young plays a middle-aged smoothie who has recently wed a much younger blonde bombshell (Lynley). She is amiable enough, but has frequent panic attacks related to something or someone that scared the hell out of her when she was still a baby. Young persuades her to return to the small, isolated community of her birthplace and to re-unite with the old family, hoping that by confronting her past she will be able to find out what caused her trauma and get over it. However, it turns out to be something rather threatening....

The film is nicely paced, with few tedious moments. It is well photographed too. The film has a dated look, with fashion, music and dialogue very much of its time (though, of course, that would be hard to avoid). However, for those who prefer their horror movies with subtle chills and a spooky build-up (none of that modern Hollywood gore and special effects-wizardry) this is a worthwhile experience.

Creepy! This is an unfairly unappreciated and extremely effective Gothic horror flick from the late 60's. It is also one of the better attempts to bring literary mastermind H.P. Lovecraft to the screen. The acting is magnificent! Carol Lynley and Gig Young are in top form as the bewildered young couple whose arrival in the small, tranquil village seems to trigger off a series of bizarre and ultimately deadly occurences. Veteran character actress Flora Robson is genuinely affecting as the strange old lady who seems to know a great deal more than she's telling about the secret that's hidden away in THE SHUTTERED ROOM. Oliver Reed is appropriately menacing as a young roughneck. This one is a little tough to find these days. It's not readily available in video stores, and though once popular on late night television, they rarely run it on TV. But should you be so fortunate to come across it, don't pass it up!