Satan's Playthings

AND SOON THE DARKNESS (1970)
ASSAULT (1971)

AND SOON THE DARKNESS sees English nurse Pamela Franklin contend with a serial killer and the language barrier in rural France. The film was needlessly remade in 2010, where American girls go on a bike trip in a remote part of Argentina.

THESE thrillers both exploit rural settings as key plot devices, and play like a rebuttal to the sexual freedom of the Love Generation. Directed by Robert Fuest from a script by Brian Clemens and Terry Nation, AND SOON THE DARKNESS tells the story of Jane (Pamela Franklin) and Cathy (Michele Dotrice), two young student nurses from England on a cycling holiday through rural France. Jane intends to keep to a schedule, but Cathy wants to enjoy the surroundings at a slower pace, especially the local males. This conflict of interests leads to an argument where Jane leaves Cathy to lounge at an off-road spot. However, when Jane returns she can find no trace of her friend and, asking around, learns that a few years ago another blond woman was sexually assaulted and killed in the area. Joined by scooter-riding Paul (Sandor Eles), who claims to be a detective for the Sûreté, the evidence leaves Jane unsure as to whether he might be the killer.

The movie is set completely in broad daylight and unfolds almost real-time over a single afternoon. The bare openness of the fields and countryside brood with sinister effect, as the provincial landscape is a foreboding character in itself. The French language notably is not subtitled so the viewer feels the same alienation as Jane ("Meutre? That's French for "murder" isn't it?"), who is faced with a catalogue of unnerving locals all strangely lukewarm about the need to find Cathy; even the English schoolmistress Jane encounters is matter-of-fact ("loathsome business, sex.") AND SOON THE DARKNESS may be too slow-burning for some - especially as it shows restraint at a time when nudity and gore were beginning to characterise most output - but this British film prefigures the Backwoods Brutality cycle that would be defined by the classic slices of Americana THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE and THE HILLS HAVE EYES.

An uninspired tale of killer-baiting, ASSAULT is also known under a dizzying amount of alternative titles, including THE CREEPERS, IN THE DEVIL'S GARDEN, TOWER OF TERROR and even SATAN'S PLAYTHINGS. This is a 1980 re-release ad mat for a Miami theatre.

Based on Kendal Young’s novel The Ravine, Sidney Hayer's ASSAULT begins in Devil’s End wood, where Heatherdene Arts School student Tessa Hurst (Lesley-Anne Down) is raped. When a second girl is attacked and murdered in the same location, detective Velyan (Frank Finlay) is struggling for clues, as Hurst is psychologically traumatised and unable to speak. Velyan seeks the help of Dr Greg Lomax (James Laurenson) in profiling the offender, and eyewitness art mistress Julie West (Suzy Kendall) offers herself as bait by using tabloid journalist Denny (Freddie Jones) to run a story announcing she is about to complete a photo fit painting of the killer. The investigation takes on a different angle when Lomax decides to use Pentothal on Tessa to bring her out of her comatose state, but when he arrives at the hospital dispensary to collect the drug, it transpires that a fellow doctor has taken the supply.

Although any number of Italian gialli were set in Britain and/or were UK co-productions, ASSAULT is unique in that it a completely British giallo, illustrating plot devices made famous by the genre. Sadly, unlike the Italian entries, the cinematography here is staid and unimaginative, and the execution linear and logical. The production uses that infamous British trait of casting twenty year old vixens as fifteen year schoolgirls, and dressing them in mini-skirts short enough to get any real schoolgirl expelled. The most lurid scene involves the headmistress's lecherous husband Leslie (Tony Beckley) and a student librarian on a ladder; the "student" is played by Janet Lynn, a British sex star of the period who had featured the year before in Pete Walker's COOL IT, CAROL. Finlay and Laurenson make turgid investigators, and it rests with honey-blond Kendall - who starred in Dario Argento's notable giallo THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE - to bring some interest to the screen.

Don't Go In The House

THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE (1973)

THE INNOCENTS child star Pamela Franklin plays spiritualist Florence Tanner. The Yokohama-born actress was busy with the supernatural in the early 1970s - appearing in NECROMANCY and the made-for-TV SATAN'S SCHOOL FOR GIRLS - before retiring from acting in 1981.

PHYSICIST Dr Barrett (Clive Revill) is offered £100,000 by elderly Mr Deutsch (Roland Culver) to establish "the facts" about survival after death. The only suitable location for such an undertaking is the foreboding Belasco House, the "Mount Everest of haunted houses." Barrett is given a week to deliver his conclusions, organising the delivery of his newly perfected (and extremely bulky) electromagnetic radiation machine, and works alongside mental medium Florence Tanner (Pamela Franklin) and Ben Fischer (Roddy McDowall), a physical medium and only survivor of a previous investigation. The property owner was "Roaring Giant" Emeric Belasco, a six-foot-five perverted millionaire who disappeared soon after a massacre at the house. Florence claims to receive visits from Belasco's abused son Daniel, and when Barrett expresses scepticism he is attacked by - in quick succession - a glass, a flying meat rack and a falling chandelier, then a fire starts. Meanwhile, Barrett's wife Ann (Gayle Hunnicutt) - accompanying her husband during his stay - is turning into a nymphomaniac, and Florence is being molested by the disturbed spirit of Daniel and later, mauled by a black cat.

THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE beat THE EXORCIST into theatres by six months, and both deal with demonic possession in tandem with sexual language. However, the British entry plays like a children's horror movie, with one of the most laughable endings in genre history: basically, Emeric was no giant. Scripted by Richard Matheson from his novel Hell House, the writer was apparently "sick with disappointment" after seeing the film, a notion shared by the majority of its audience over the years. At least half of its performers bring something to the table: Franklin takes the acting honours despite the ludicrous situations her character is thrust into, and McDowall entertainingly sleep-walks through his role as the distant Fischer. In comparison, Revill makes for a staid and stuffy scientist - one can only dream of Peter Cushing in the role - and Hunnicutt is miscast as the faithful yet sexually-frustrated wife, who at least can experience some kind of carnal pleasures while in the grip of the Belasco environment.

The cover to Saint Martin's reprinting of Hell House. More graphic and sexually violent than the screen adaptation, the novel also depicts the Belasco property as a luxurious art deco-style palace - complete with swimming-pool and ballroom - rather than the cobwebbed Gothic mansion of the film.

Crowleyesque Emeric apparently shut himself and his acolytes within the mansion ("look at the windows ... he had them bricked up so no one could see in ... or out"), the house a haven for murder and debauchery ("drug addiction, alcoholism, sadism, bestiality, mutilation, murder, vampirism, necrophilia, cannibalism ... not to mention a gamut of sexual goodies.") In one unintentionally hilarious scene, sexually-souped Ann approaches Fischer with a sweaty verbal onslaught after rubbing the breasts of a statue ("together, naked, drunk, clutching, sweating, biting ...") Perhaps it was Matheson's intention to subscribe to Crowley's beliefs, and portray a set of individuals with differing viewpoints to illustrate that the only unifying human condition is sensual and sado-erotic pleasure, and to test what is physically and spiritually possible.

The film has a misplaced feeling through its not always convincing time-frame captions, and the week of the investigations takes place in the lead up to Christmas, without any mention of the holiday season. This otherworldly quality is enhanced by BBC Radiophonic Workshop veterans Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson’s electronic soundtrack, which exists more as a series of drum-driven oscillations than a formed score, and its distinctive visual style was recently plundered by Edgar Wright for his fake trailer DON'T! in GRINDHOUSE. The special effects though are hardly special, resulting in an ectoplasm scene that has to hide behind some scientific hyperbole ("premature retraction of ectoplasm causes systemic shock”) and one gets the impression that Matheson and director John Hough think they are making some important statements, though it's hard to see behind shock tactics and silly sex. This serious stance is underpinned by the opening written assurance from Tom Corbett - a "clairvoyant and psychic consultant to European Royalty" who also acted as technical advisor - that the story, though fictitious, is "not only very much within the bounds of possibility, but could well be true."

Bly Spirit

THE INNOCENTS (1961)

The BFI’s Region 2 DVD of THE INNOCENTS includes an introduction and commentary by Christopher Frayling, and one of the very few booklets that can be celebrated as a true DVD extra.

JACK Clayton’s ambiguous THE INNOCENTS, adapted from Henry James’ 1898 novella The Turn of the Screw, builds suspense slowly, subtly, and inexorably. It tells the story of repressed Victorian governess Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr), who is hired by a wealthy and irresponsible man (Michael Redgrave) to assume charge of his country manor, Bly House, and his orphaned niece and nephew - Flora (Pamela Franklin), and Miles (Martin Stephens). Giddens sees the ghostly apparitions of her late predecessor Miss Jessel (Clytie Jessop) and former groundskeeper Quint (Peter Wyngarde) and, knowing that the children were exposed to this sadomasochistic relationship, she becomes convinced that this memory must be purged before it contaminates them.

The films’ gothic angst and creep-outs manipulate its traditional ghost story ethic with remarkable freshness. Metaphor is one of cinema’s richest streams, and Kerr takes perfect advantage of her respectable facade wrestling with unspeakable turbulence. Prim and sexually straitjacketed, her character is corrupted by the old house. The ambiguity is consequently fascinating or maddening - according to taste - with critics labelling Giddens insane to even a paedophile. Whatever your conclusion, it is an unforgettable portrayal, and with Franklin and Stephens delivering performances of astonishing maturity, THE INNOCENTS may well be the finest-acted horror film.

The possible otherworldly intervention of Quint in the life of Miles is one of THE INNOCENTS’ many ambiguous threads.

Photographed by Freddie Francis in CinemaScope, THE INNOCENTS’ musters its frisson by both candle and daylight, its oil-black and snow-white compositions teasing the eye toward faces haunting the periphery or deep background. Francis’ self-made red iris filter deliberately frames in oval twilight, making outer edges appear shadowy and mysterious. Most haunting are the glimpses of Jessel, sobbing uncontrollably at her lectern, or standing forlorn among the reeds, and Quint’s initial unexpected surge toward the camera (and Giddens) gives the distinct impression of movement within another dimension. The audio effects are also noteworthy, with the natural sounds of the house’s garden amplified so that even bird song becomes unsettling.

Deborah Kerr passed away on October 16th at the age of 86. Kerr’s angular beauty and self-possessed femininity distinguished more than fifty films in four decades. Though her poise might be ruffled in scenes of passion (most famously by her encounter on the beach with Burt Lancaster in FROM HERE TO ETERNITY), her well-bred airs and graces made Kerr a model of British womanhood in Hollywood. Yet her refined sensuality proved refreshingly attractive, since it hinted at hidden desires and forbidden feelings, giving an extra edge and interest. If she still looked more at ease on screen as a nun than as a nymphomaniac, or as a governess rather than a seductress, Kerr loved to hint at what she called "banked fires," the volcano steaming away beneath the surface. Never was this more evident than in THE INNOCENTS.