The origins of the slasher flick can be traced all the way back to Hitchcock's masterpiece, Psycho, but the modern slasher is a different animal entirely. Some still believe that John Carpenter's overrated Halloween began the craze, but that was predated by Black Christmas, and that in turn was predated by this British flick from 1971. Fair enough, this isn't exactly a template for the modern slasher film, but many of the staples of the genre - a young woman in peril, a killer fresh out of the loony bin, the babysitter theme etc - feature, and to the best of my knowledge; this was one of the first films to feature these themes together. The film can be described as the film that 'When a Stranger Calls' should have been, as it takes the theme of a babysitter being stalked by a lunatic, except everything is fit into one night; and so doesn't suffer from the sprawling middle section of the aforementioned film. Amanda is a young babysitter who arrives at the residence of the Lloyds to look after their three year old son while they go out to a party. What she doesn't realise is that the father's biological father has broken out of a mental home, and has decided to go and see his won...
By keeping the focus on just one situation over one period of time, director Peter Collinson (Straight on Till Morning, The Italian Job) creates a tense atmosphere, which benefits from the dark and gloomy feeling that the night setting gives to the story. The film isn't all that gory, but this doesn't really matter as the focus is always on the atmosphere, and this is enough to pull it through. The film benefits from two great performances. First and most importantly, we have Susan George, who lights up the screen throughout with her stunning good looks. Also appearing is Pussy Galore herself Honor Blackman, who is good in the time that she appears. The plot moves well throughout, and the fact that the film doesn't really have a great deal of story is excellently masked by the tense atmosphere, which is enough to keep things moving. There's only one real twist in the story, and that concerns the meeting of the lunatic father. His appearance isn't all that shocking since the hints that he will turn up come thick and fast early on. This is where Fright falls down, but even so; this is a nice little exercise in suspense, and is well worth seeing.
By keeping the focus on just one situation over one period of time, director Peter Collinson (Straight on Till Morning, The Italian Job) creates a tense atmosphere, which benefits from the dark and gloomy feeling that the night setting gives to the story. The film isn't all that gory, but this doesn't really matter as the focus is always on the atmosphere, and this is enough to pull it through. The film benefits from two great performances. First and most importantly, we have Susan George, who lights up the screen throughout with her stunning good looks. Also appearing is Pussy Galore herself Honor Blackman, who is good in the time that she appears. The plot moves well throughout, and the fact that the film doesn't really have a great deal of story is excellently masked by the tense atmosphere, which is enough to keep things moving. There's only one real twist in the story, and that concerns the meeting of the lunatic father. His appearance isn't all that shocking since the hints that he will turn up come thick and fast early on. This is where Fright falls down, but even so; this is a nice little exercise in suspense, and is well worth seeing.