Out of Bounds

Sophie Ward is excellent as the headmistress of a girl's school, who has to face sore trials in her relationships, with her husband, an American painter and teacher of art, and her favourite pupil Sophie Myles, who becomes his mistress in the very school premises, which of course must lead to complications. They both act rather foolishly, how careless and irresponsible can you get as a teacher in a girl's school, while the headmistress Sophie Ward at least tries to keep control, maintaining style and appearances. The story does not quite hold out until the end, there are some improbable flaws, while the interesting part is Sophie Myles' occult revelations of her lover when he is gone and believed dead or even killed. What kills the plot is the doctor's loss of control, who does some things a doctor never should or could do, while at first she appears as the most self-controlled person of all. The acting is good throughout, there are some interesting Gothic elements, as it could develop into a truly scary business, which it actually tries to do, but too many things go wrong, and in the end when a corpse is fished out of the pond it only adds to the general confusion, while we shall never know how all this mess really ended. We are left with some puzzling guesses, while our sympathies remain with the headmistress.

I thought the previous reviewer was harsh - yes, you don't expect the twist at he end (a sad one to be fair!) but I thought there was plenty of tension created who didn't feel desperate for Louise as she was stalked around that dark school?? Louise (Sophia Myles) was excellent - having not seen her before I'll join the chorus of praise and predictions that she'll go all the way to the top - this was a convincing performance, full of intelligence.

thought the soundtrack worked pretty well and the empty private school in the middle of nowhere was the perfect set up for a 'shining' type descent into hell for Louise

Some of the comments on this film seem a little unreasonable. This is an enjoyable and refreshing take on clichés within the terror genre, and the actresses are particularly good and make it well worth watching.

Somebody made a comment about this being similar to the Hammer House of Horror TV series, and I'd agree with that and say it's a pretty good summation of the feel of the story. How refreshing to see a story that doesn't charge forward with an alpha male in the lead, and that doesn't make it's heroines into soppy losers. This is a really fun horror, doesn't amp up any violence gratuitously, does a good job of creating it's mood and whilst I wouldn't recommend going out of one's way to find it, it's worth the time.

One quibble, which would seem fair, Michael Elphick, god rest his soul, is wasted. Looks like this was his last role.

I saw this when it was on the BBC the other day and thought the synopsis sounded pretty good. I thought that the aspects of a horror film were there but realistic. So many times have some occurrences in horror films been so coincidental. This was believable. I really did feel for Louise and how lonely she was. I liked the fact that you never really knew what was happening and even at the end you were still left guessing. I was confused by some of the characters and found their development a little hazy. This was especially so with veronica and imogen who i didn't understand. I also found a few too many twists. I think the best part of the film was Sophia Myles who was very good. The best thing was that I saw Celia Imrie two days after I saw this down Regent St. I don't know why I hadn't heard of this film before, its better than most films in the cinema.

In the 1970s this modest entry would have been a 60-minute TV episode from an anthology such as Brian Clemens's "Thriller" or "Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense". To make it feature-length, too many false endings have been tacked on; but the substance is just about intriguing enough to keep a late-night television viewer (if not, apparently, a British distributor) watching to the positively final climax.

A girls' boarding school at half term affords plenty of shots of the heroine, Sophia Myles, creeping along deserted corridors and entering empty rooms, or being walked in on by a trio of sinister older women. Miss Myles, very much in the buxom English rose mould of Kate Winslet, acquits herself competently without lurching into the irritating extremes of scream queen on the one hand or dopey wide-eyed dupe on the other: she projects intelligence as well as courage.

Sophie Ward as her steely headmistress and Celia Imrie-- in a role as an art-dealing doctor which is outside her normal persona as a glamorous but trustworthy Scotch matron-- keep audiences guessing about their motives. The men are not as satisfactory. Sophia's object of adulterous affection, an American art teacher married to Ms Ward, is less a character than a McGuffin. Michael Elphick, sadly bloated in his last big-screen appearance, has little to do.

The soundtrack is too replete with creepy music: the natural sounds of a big old building in the depths of the English countryside could have been used more. There are a few wince-making genre clichés, such as Sophia flinching when a sheet is pulled back and she has to ID a disfigured corpse. But this is a British suspenser which keeps its language clean, aims above the gut and avoids mid-Atlanticism. It deserved better than a late-night BBC1 premiere without even a write-up in the 'Radio Times'; if the BBC had produced it as a TV movie, they would have talked it up.