This is one of those films that you hear about for years but never get the chance to see. I've been aching to see this for ages, but never came across it until recently. It's not a bad little piece of early '70s horror, really. Actually, I only have two major gripes: First, the kid. He made me want to feed him to the rats for the majority of the film. The strange marionette obsession, the circus-like songs he 'wrote', the annoying heavy breathing when he'd supposedly overexerted himself....the kid's weird and in a male-Shirley-Temple kind of way. He's creepier than Ben ever thought about being. But I suppose it was meant to make his outcast status believable, in which case it works beautifully. No other kid in their right mind would hang out with Danny! My second gripe is with the climax of the film. Frankly, it just runs on too bloody long. Seems like watching the same scene over and over for twenty minutes, which is monotonous. Aside from these two small quibbles, I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed 'Ben'. I've never had a horror villain make me cry before, but Ben not only had me all weepy at the end but I was rooting for him pretty much the whole movie. He's just so darn cute!
Review of Ben
