Recently recovered from a nervous breakdown, Judy Geeson marries Ralph Bates, a teacher at a posh boy’s school. Geeson is attacked by a one-armed man on repeated occasions, but as there is no evidence of the alleged crimes, Bates simply assumes that Geeson is seeing things. He invites her to join him at the remote country boarding school, to be closer to her. However, in addition to Geeson hearing noises of schoolchildren when there currently are none at the school (the semester seemingly hasn’t started yet), the attacks from the one-armed man continue. Peter Cushing plays the school’s daffy headmaster, whilst Joan Collins is his bitchy wife and character actor James Cossins (looking suspiciously unpleasant as always) turns up early as a doctor.
This offering from writer-director-producer Jimmy Sangster (“The Horror of Frankenstein”, “Lust for a Vampire”) is a perfect example of why Hammer Studios (at least in its original form) went kaput. They had simply run out of good ideas, and a decision to cease making Victorian-era horror flicks didn’t help. This one is often credited as the last of the company’s horror-thriller output, but the only thing horror-oriented here is the company itself and the cast. Otherwise it’s just a psycho-thriller/mystery and an extremely dull one. Hell, it’s not even terribly handsomely produced as most Hammer films tend to be. It’s better than “Crescendo”, though, which is the only completely terrible film I’ve seen from Hammer.
I like the psychological aspect here, but otherwise it’s awfully bare-bones and nondescript for the most part. Well-acted, but simplistically plotted and achingly slow, which proves a problematic combination. Because the film is moving at half the speed it should, it gives the viewer way too much time to figure it all out, as it is totally transparent despite the actors’ best efforts to disguise their characters’ true intentions. One character’s entrance involving the shooting of a rabbit, in particular, robs the film of any suspense from thereon in. True, there is a slight wrinkle at the end that isn’t totally predictable, and is rather weird, but by then it is too late. The main plot is hard to swallow, the murder plot seems awfully protracted to really convince.
As I said, the acting is fine, particularly Geeson, but none of the other stars are really given enough to chew on. Cushing in particular has a completely useless role, clearly only cast for marquee value. When you find out something about him late in the film, it merely serves to make you wish the film were centred around him entirely. Still, perhaps he was happy to be working at that point in time. Bates tries his best, though, and even if the film is transparent, his performance is not. One of Hammer’s most underrated and versatile actors, I’ll never understand why his career never took off.
OVERALL SUMMARY
Easily one of Hammer’s least, this film really offers little of interest even to the most devoted.
