Reviewed By-Steve Genier
Directed By-Peter Collinson
Cast-Susan George, Honor Blackman, John Gregson and Ian Bannen.
Viewing Source-Anchor Bay DVD (2002)
Runtime-87mins

 

Amanda (Susan George) arrives at the Lloyd house to babysit their young son, Tara for the evening. Right from the start you experience a certain tension created by Tara's mother, Helen (Honor Blackman). automatically bolting the front door upon letting Amanda in. After a few minutes of introducing and a sipping of brandy, the tension seems to disband alittle while the Lloyds talk about their dinner date. Yet, there is an uneasiness about Helen, a secret that she hides from the babysitter perhaps. Once they leave for their dinner date, Amanda begins to scope the fairly large house. She quickly sees a face at one of the windows, she becomes alert and scared, the doorbell rings. She runs to the door and calls out asking who is there. The familiar voice is that of her boyfriend's. Amanda give him hell for trying to scare her, but to her surprise he denies creeping around the house. This of course plays with her mind. Let many movies that play upon this situation of the young girl all by herself babysitting and the boyfriend looking for quick action, they begin to fool around only to be interrupted by the phone ringing. It's Helen looking for an update as to how things are going, in the background Amanda's boyfriend plays with fire and blurts out wording as to letting the person on the phone hear.

 Once quickly patching up any suspicions Helen may of had, Amanda gets off the phone and gives her boyfriend hell once again. This time she shows him the door. The rollercaster ride begins, someone awaits her boyfriend outside, beating him up badly maybe left for death. Enter Helen's worst nightmare, her really husband Brian, an escaped mental patient looking for his wife. Once getting inside, he convinces Amanda that his is one of the neighbors coming over to check on what all the screaming is about. Amanda explains that there a crazy man outside and she fears for her safety and that of Tara, the Helen's son's. Although very convincing at first, Brian starts to show his true colours and Amanda quickly catches on that he in fact is the true maniac that was stocking the house earlier. Events like Amanda's boyfriend turning up dead, well at first takes it toll on Amanda's mind. Responding to an suspicious death of a young women from earlier on, and with the pleas made by Helen's friend to go check thing out, the police make their move. Is it too late though, has the damage been done?

With taglines like "One of the very best horror films of the 70's, just don't watch it alone!" and "Before Halloween, before When a Stranger Calls, there was only one Fright!" one would tend to believe this film would be a classic. Not true in this case, Fright was often boring and very slow to built up at all. That goes for any suspense etc. This film has all the elements to have potential, the big gothic mansion, the beautiful young female, the maniac and all the great supporting cast, but just drops dead. There is nothing to this film that even remotely compares it to such classics as Halloween except for plot undertones. There's certainly not the amount of terror in Fright to equal that of Halloween in the slight. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of many horror films that came out of the UK in the 70's, like TERROR, KILLER'S MOON and THE VIRGIN WITCH among others. Hey, with a lead such as the beautiful Susan George (Straw Dogs, Die Screaming, Marianne), I figured it was worth the go. Even her beauty can not save the overall dullness of this, tragic really. Director Peter Collinson seems to take us on a personal journey, one that many seem to think reflects his brutal childhood. For more information on that look at the DVD's bio on him supplied with the very limited special features. Limited is the truth, a trailer and bio on just Collinson. The transfer itself is very good both audio and visual. Although only presented in digital mono, the sound is still very crisp. The same can be said about the transfer itself, presented in 1:66:1 widescreen the picture is very clear and sharp. Hopefully, I'll have better luck with Anchor Bay's releasing of another Collinson film, STRAIGHT ON TILL MORNING, which seems to get fair reviews. Wish me luck!