Scream of Fear kicked off the Hammer psycho thriller cycle proper in 1963 – but a couple of years earlier Hammer invested in this film, which is also a black and white thriller, set partly in the south of France, about centered around a person worried about going insane. This was too early to be rip off of Psycho, but like Scream of Fear was presumably influenced by Diabolique.
The plot concerns racing driver Roland Lewis (who was in Scream of Fear), who gets in a car crash (a striking opening sequence), and worries about wanting to kill his wife (Diane Cilento, attractive but her Italian accent grates after a while). He sees a shrink (Claude Dauphine) who seems to cure him… but does he have the hots for Cilento?
There are some effective moments – Lewis gives a strong performance – but this isn’t very good. It goes for far too long, 107 minutes, and lacks the shocks, twists and atmosphere you’d find in the Jimmy Sangster-written psycho thrillers.
It takes far too long to get going and Dauphine isn’t nasty enough; it isn’t particularly logical (the Sangster ones weren’t as well but you didn’t mind because of their other attributes)’ and I hated the reveal that Lewis’ guilt was caused by driving on the wrong side of the road and killing a truck driver… he’s supposed to be our hero and we’re supposed to feel better because he doesn’t want to kill his wife!? How about killing the bloody truck driver! There’s also three action sequences – two car crashes, a cable car collapse – too cheaply put together without doing a stunt – a few close ups, a loud sound effect, cut to the crash site. One or two you don’t mind but three and you really wish they’d ponied up for a stunt. Val Guest’s direction has it’s vigorous moments (he always starts his films with a bang) but he co-wrote this, he’s got to take blame for it’s flaws.
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