Hammer horror does kitchen sink – Rita Tushingham plays a sort of Billy Liar character, a fantasist who goes to London to find a husband, only to hook up with Shane Briant, who happens to be a crazy killer. Most of the movie consists of these two stuck in Briant’s flat; occasionally Tushingham leaves so Briant can kill a hot girl (Krista Weymouth – who, like a lot of Hammer glamours around this time, had taken her kit off for Kubrick in A Clockwork Orange) and a dog. I can’t believe Hammer thought the British public would enjoy a horror movie where the male lead stabs a dog to death with a Stanley knife. It’s a highly unpleasant scene even if you don’t like dogs; ditto the killing of Weymouth.
When the film isn’t being annoying it’s boring – this is mostly long psychological “drama” (the screenwriter was a playwright) interspersed with bits of violence. It feels as though it needed another character or something; all the great Sangster psycho thrillers had at least four main characters, something like The Servant had four, why do they think it was going to work with two?
There’s lots of swinging 70s clothes, décor and filmmaking techniques, which makes the movie seem dated. Fine acting from Tushingham and Briant; it’s just a shame it wasn’t on a better film. Peter Collinson wasn't much of a director.
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