'Fear in the Night'

It's been several years since I've updated 'Random Movie Project.' You see, this blog pretty much relies on my access to the film library located at Audio/Video Plus, a phenomenal video store located in Houston, Texas. And it's been a few years since I've lived in Houston, Texas. What I do is pick a random movie from the in store reference book by using either www.random.org or a random number generator application on my phone. I first pick a number between 1 and 655 (page number) and then another number between 1 and 58 (movies per page). It's a little like what some people use to pick lottery numbers. And there you have it. I give that catalog number to the clerk wherewith they recede back into the VHS stacks and return with that movie. And if the title I pick isn't an actual film, I pick new numbers. For example, most recently my random numbers turned up an opera concert film... and then a Jazzercize tape. Not very exciting stuff to write about.

It was only after those two misfires did I find:

Fear in the Night (1972)

Director: Jimmy Sangster

Writers: Jimmy Sangster and Michael Syson

Stars: Judy Gleeson, Ralph Bates, Joan Collins and Peter Cushing

AKA:

Honeymoon of Fear

Dynasty of Fear

Summary:

This story centers around a young London newlywed, Peggy Heller (Judy Gleeson) who believes she has been attacked by a one-armed intruder. However, she has been convinced by her doctor that she has simply taken a terrible fall and she instead suffers from a bad case of nerves. She agrees to recover by travelling on a honeymoon (of sorts) with her husband, also a doctor, (Ralph Bates) to the countryside at a cottage on the grounds of an old boarding school for boys. This is the location for the rest of the film. It is autumn and gray, dull, lifeless and very spooky. Not ideal for a honeymoon, even by British standards, but a great setting for this psychological thriller/mystery.

As one might guess, she continues suffering attacks by a mysterious one-armed man. And she repeatedly wakes up otherwise unharmed and again and again convinced by her husband her attacks are all in her mind. She decides one afternoon to have a stroll around the empty schoolhouse where she is cornered by the looming and tunefully named Headmaster Michael Carmichael (Peter Cushing). This is where we, the audience, not Peggy, catches a glimpse that he has a prosthetic arm, leading us to believe that he's the mysterious attacker. Later, we meet the Headmaster's wife, the very snooty Molly Carmichael (yeah, I know, "Mike and Molly") played by Joan Collins.

Here's where the plot becomes pretty thick. There are several red herrings (or are they?) which leads us to suspect the creepy headmaster and possibly his nasty wife are behind the repeated attacks. But why doesn't Peggy ever really get hurt? And why do we never see the headmaster's face when he is attempting to strangle Ms. Heller? And why, if it's their honeymoon, does the husband have to go to work every day? Eventually, Dr. Heller admits to his wife that the headmaster is really just a delusional old coot who actually lost his school a decade prior when a fire killed several of his students. He and Ms. Carmichael have since taken up residence in the building and carries on as if it is still a functioning academy, going so far as to play recordings of ambient school sounds such as old lessons being taught in the classrooms, a boys choir in the music hall and loud students having lunch in the food hall. Peggy's husband has even told her that the snobby Mrs. Carmichael has hired him as her husband's personal caretaker, and that Peggy's arrival has the headmaster envying her for.... well, I won't confuse you with the twist at the end.

Impressions:

Before I even watched this movie, I was amused, as always, at how studios constantly rename and repackage movies to (presumably) sell to new distributers and find new audiences. The tape I rented was called "Honeymoon of Fear." I can tell this was re-titled because the title shows up in neon-blue 80s font when the rest of the opening credits are subtle and white. I guess this sounded more schlocky and thus a better slasher film title, although this is not a slasher film. Then, at some point, it was called "Dynasty of Fear," which makes no sense at all in the context of the plot, but made sense to Hammer Films or whoever owned the movie rights when Joan Collins hit it big in America with the TV drama series "Dynasty." Getting the word "Dynasty" into the title was a chance to cash in on Ms. Collins' success. The DVD release even has Joan Collins' face on the cover when, really, she has something like third billing in the original movie. The same thing happened with another movie I watched for this blog, "The Ballad of Billy Blue." They renamed it "Jailbreakin" and put a mock-up drawing of a muscular Erik Estrada on the cover when he was actually a wimpy fellow inmate who hardly says two lines in the whole movie. False advertising at its finest.

Now as for this movie, I really enjoyed it. Who'd a' thunk it, right? It could never keep pace with modern movies, but it's simple cast did a great job with their roles and the story kept moving fast enough to keep the audience on edge. Peter Cushing, especially, proved once again that few actors can be as menacing and creepy on screen, even with the admittedly cheesy (but fun) material he had to work with. Much like fellow Hammer Films star Christopher Lee and fellow Star Wars alumn, Alec Guinness, it's always great, if not just a little sad, to see actors dive wholeheartedly into rolls that are obviously beneath their talent level.

The story doesn't really break new ground, plot-wise, but it's a lot of fun. It has a lot in common with The Deadly Bees, another British thriller with the heroine having moved to the countryside after suffering a nervous breakdown in London where she must deal with a more harrowing set of circumstances. Only in The Deadly Bees, it's... the deadly bees.

And while it's true nothing really big happens for the entire first hour, the creepiness of the characters and the setting took its time establishing the tone of the story and made the payoff that much more satisfying in the end. Writer/director, Jimmy Sangster also has some actual credentials having worked both in film and in TV writing for The Six Million Dollar Man, McCloud and Wonder Woman.

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