Fear in the Night (1974)

Purely Joyful Movie!

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Being a fan of Hammer Horror and the Giallo sub-genre I started talking to a friend about Horror flicks to view in October. Whilst being aware of Hammer's late Psycho-Thriller/Giallo era,I was surprised to get told of a Hammer psycho which co-starred Peter Cushing,which led to me fearing the night.The plot:Preparing to move to a secluded boys' boarding school that her husband Robert Heller will be working at,Peggy is attacked by a stranger wearing black gloves.Waking up from the attack,Peggy finds no proof that an attacker was in the house,and starts to wonder if she is imagining things. Going to the school with Robert,Peggy meets headmaster Michael Carmichael,whose quiet behaviour puts Peggy on edge. Attacked (and knocked out) again,Peggy wakes up to find Robert asking what she thinks might be causing her to faint.Fearing her sanity,Peggy decides to relax and walk round the school.Hearing the sound of school children,Peggy walks into the school and is horrified,when she finds it to be completely empty of kids.View on the film:Reaching the screen after originally being written in 1963,co- writer/(along with Michael Syson) director Jimmy Sangster gives the horror a sly middle class shell,dressed in crisp surroundings and prim clothes which allow for the psychological terror to lurk underneath. Dissecting Hammer studios major theme of female hysteria with Giallo black gloves,the writers brilliantly mix haunted Gothic Horror memories of a past that has long gone with a rich Film Noir pessimism.Tearing Peggy Heller away from being a "Scream Queen",the writers use the disbelief in Peggy's visions to cast her as a Film Noir loner,whose hysteria over what she is experiencing is clouded by the meek middle class façade Robert covers her eyes with.For the final Hammer Horror he would direct, Sangster and cinematographer Arthur Grant set the mood tranquillity,by giving the opening morbid,stilted camera moves casting a shadow of something long forgotten. Cosying up in the Heller's house, Sangster sits in with corned shots on the household which lock Peggy in and make the sudden shots of violence smash the image of Peggy's life with a mighty Hammer.Also making his final Hammer outing, Ralph Bates gives a wonderful performance as Robert,whose mature manner Bates makes just that bit eerily off. Joining in on the Giallo Horror game, Peter Cushing walks a fine line in his performance as "The Headmaster" whose gentlemen manner is undermined by Cushing blinding him with shards of cold emotion across his black glasses.Delivering a scream with fear to match the best of Hammer's Girls,the elegant Judy Geeson wonderfully turns Peggy into a burnt-out Film Noir loner,whose chirpy middle class heart is worn down by Geeson into a hysteria which leads to Peggy being numb to the outside world,as Peggy discovers that fear is the key.

I found Arthur Grant's lighting the principal annoying element of this motion picture. While Jack Asher photographed almost all of Hammer Film classics, Grant was usually in charge of the less ambitious projects of the company. By the end of the 1960s he contributed to little gems like "The Reptile" and "Plague of the Zombies", but even these were much brighter than the average horror film and --in cases as "Frankenstein Created Women" and this production-- the lighting was more akin to a television drama or sitcom, having too much light on sets of dark tales, making the images (and the tales) look flat. Then the almost absence of surprise and subtlety in the dosage of information, does not help the fact that the story is not very original, and that you have seen it many times before, and a couple of times with more flair. Judy Geeson, Ralph Bates, Joan Collins and Peter Cushing do quite well, considering they are dealing with stereotypes (frightened girl, suspicious husband, bitchy headmaster's wife, and mean crippled headmaster, respectively) and that they were under the direction of Jimmy Sangster, who was foremost a very good scriptwriter. But do not expect too much.

Mentally fragile Peggy (Judy Geeson) is attacked by a one-armed man the night before she is to move with her new husband Robert (Ralph Bates) to the remote boys' boarding school where he now works. At the mysteriously empty school, Peggy meets the headmaster Michael (Peter Cushing) and is ill-received by his uncongenial wife (Joan Collins). It is not long before Peggy finds herself again pursued by her attacker, who seems to have followed her there.Probably the most little-seen Hammer film of its era, "Fear in the Night" is, dare I say, quite underrated. Perhaps this is because it's one of the company's later and more obscure pictures, but regardless, this is a solid and surprisingly eerie film that has all the trappings and twists of a modernist suspense film, supplemented with an English Gothic atmosphere and shades of giallo.Director, producer, and co-writer (as well as Hammer head honcho) Jimmy Sangster handles the material here with an understated flair and does a fantastic job at establishing the film's ominous mood; atmosphere is what this film does best, and atmosphere, to me, is one of the most important components of any effective horror film. The photography of the autumnal boarding school campus and the chalet-style buildings weaves a languid and chilly disposition, and there are some truly nightmarish sequences with Geeson running through the empty halls of the school in the middle of the night. The mentally-unstable woman motif is used to its full extent here, and while it's not exactly original, it is well done in this case. Unusual editing choices really put the viewer in the midst of Peggy's struggle and work to disorient our perception of what is happening around the old boarding school; in many ways, the film reminded of a more restrained version of Robert Altman's "Images," which was released the same year. Both films boast similar plots, jarring and manipulative editing choices, unnerving scores, and both feature a blonde, mentally fragile woman tormented in the ghostly English countryside.Judy Geeson is fantastic as the doe-eyed and innocent Peggy, while Ralph Bates plays her new beau with an appropriate mysteriousness. Peter Cushing takes the cake here as the towering and bizarre headmaster, with Joan Collins effectively playing his icy and cunning wife— oddly enough, Collins and Cushing have no scenes together, but this works to form an almost necessary disconnect between the characters. The film's twist finale, as tense as it may be, is still somewhat predictable but so stylishly handled that I can't knock it a bit. There is phenomenal use of intercom omniscience at the end, and the final scene is sickly satisfying.Overall, "Fear in the Night" is a stellar, understated thriller that boasts a great cast, solid plot twists, and truly unnerving sequences set against the backdrop of a rundown boarding school hidden away in the depths of English back country. The setting is phenomenal and Sangster makes full use of it, recalling "Diabolique" and later giallo thrillers which, in 1972, were in vogue. Some have said the film is too slow, but I found it rather infectious in its exposition; the further you are into it, the stranger things become. Definitely one of my favorite British horrors of this era. Recommended viewing in a similar vein is the Agatha Christie adaptation "Endless Night," also made the same year. 9/10.

"Fear in the Night" has a familiar plot (people move into country house and strange things start happening). Set in a boarding school in the British countryside, the movie doesn't quite live up to its potential, but has some neat surprises along the way. Maybe I should have predicted the ending, but I didn't. The movie's strength seems to be mostly in its gradual revelation of things, and the case of a possible mental breakdown.And the cast? Well, Peter Cushing - as the headmaster - obviously adds a good dimension with his eerie stare. I guess that by 1972, it was a given that any English horror movie had to star Peter Cushing and/or Christopher Lee. Judy Geeson, as the tormented young bride, is gorgeous as ever and has the perfect appearance for someone seeking into despair. Ralph Bates, as her husband, is pretty routine. Joan Collins, as the headmaster's wife, is also pretty routine.So, for the most part, there's nothing particularly special about this movie, but it's not terrible by any stretch. It's probably a must for Hammer fans. Oh, and Judy Geeson is really hot.