The plot = A young girl Amanda (Susan George) babysits a young boy, unaware that the child's real father has escaped from a mental asylum and is coming home.
An atmospheric psycho drama from the UK, definitely delivers all the chills in all the right places. One of earilest examples of babysitter alone in the house terrorized by a maniac, and one of the better examples much better than "When A Stranger Calls" original and the god awful remake. It's really the performances that makes this movie work, Susan George really shines as the babysitter whose really put through hell by the child's father played brilliantly by Ian Bannen, really hits all the right notes, he was well and truly demented and was really scary at times as he goes from tenderness to psychotic and it certainly is shocking in places, for instance directors today would never dare film the, up close, scenes where the father threatens to cut his son's throat with a shard of glass. The violence against George and the mental torture she is put through is pretty strong also. We also get Honour Blackman (famous for James Bond Gold Finger, The Cat and the Canary and TV's the Upper hand) playing the madman's ex-wife, she was well and truly beautiful in this role and we also get George Cole and Dennis Waterman from TV's minder, so this movie is full of famous faces.
All in all a tense psychological thriller that doesn't deserve to be forgotten.
An atmospheric psycho drama from the UK, definitely delivers all the chills in all the right places. One of earilest examples of babysitter alone in the house terrorized by a maniac, and one of the better examples much better than "When A Stranger Calls" original and the god awful remake. It's really the performances that makes this movie work, Susan George really shines as the babysitter whose really put through hell by the child's father played brilliantly by Ian Bannen, really hits all the right notes, he was well and truly demented and was really scary at times as he goes from tenderness to psychotic and it certainly is shocking in places, for instance directors today would never dare film the, up close, scenes where the father threatens to cut his son's throat with a shard of glass. The violence against George and the mental torture she is put through is pretty strong also. We also get Honour Blackman (famous for James Bond Gold Finger, The Cat and the Canary and TV's the Upper hand) playing the madman's ex-wife, she was well and truly beautiful in this role and we also get George Cole and Dennis Waterman from TV's minder, so this movie is full of famous faces.
All in all a tense psychological thriller that doesn't deserve to be forgotten.