Just as Francis Ford Coppola was the first of the California film school kids to find significant success, so too was he the first of the Roger Corman film school kids to make a splash. Before Ron Howard, Demme, Scorsese, James Cameron, etc. Coppola managed to impress Corman enough during the making of The Young Racers to get funding for this entirely decent low budget thriller. It’s set in Ireland and involves an axe murdered lose on an estate where there is a distinct lack of Irish accents.
There is one stand-out sequence – beautiful Luana Anders takes off her clothes and goes for a midnight swim to plant some dolls in a pond (long explanation – but it’s to do with a will).
Indeed, after her death, the film becomes less interesting, being mostly just a lot of hanging out at the estate; despite expert work from Patrick Magee, we’re stuck with some uninteresting characters including brylcreamed William Campbell (who later whinged that Coppola wouldn’t give him work later on even though he promised Campbell at the time he’d owe him one – come on, Campbell, you got paid and be grateful you’re on the first legit film of one of the all-time great directors). So the second half is a bit flat but its still the work of someone of talent.
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