FEAR IN THE NIGHT (1972)

We hear the voices of children and see a slow sweeping shot of a boarding school in the English countryside which ends with a body hanging in the trees. We flashback a few weeks to see Judy Geeson, a young woman who has spent time in an institution after a breakdown. She tells her psychiatrist she has left her job as a companion to an older woman and married a country teacher (Ralph Bates). The night before she leaves, she is attacked in her bedroom by a trenchcoated figure with a prosthetic arm though the next morning no one is inclined to believe her. She and Bates head to the boarding school which seems oddly deserted despite the voices of children reciting Latin in the classroom of headmaster Peter Cushing who seems both kindly and creepy. As she explores the nearby woods, Geeson is almost hit by a bullet fired by Cushing's young wife (Joan Collins) who is hunting rabbits. Later, Geeson is again attacked by a person with one arm. Bates seems oddly unconcerned, chalking it up to Geeson's anxiety about her breakdown, but soon we learn some backstory: Cushing, who in fact has a prosthetic arm, owns the school. After a disastrous fire which killed several students, Cushing closed the school down but plays recordings of students talking while he wanders through the building apparently living in a fantasy world. Bates, who met Cushing while a caregiver at a mental institution, has taken a job with Cushing to help reinforce Cushing's fantasy, and he may also be having an affair with Collins. To go further would necessitate spoilers which, while a bit predictable, are fun to see play out as a game of who's planning on doing harm to whom.

This Gothic psychological thriller is largely a two-hander with Geeson and Bates doing the heavy lifting, as Cushing and Collins don't actually have that much screen time—some reviewers call their roles "cameos," but that's not really accurate as they do appear in several scenes, and Collins in particular gives an effective performance with Cushing mostly left to look either doddering or sinister. It will be clear to movie buffs that films like GASLIGHT, DIABOLIQUE and GAMES are being used as inspirations. A bit more of fleshing out of the backstories of both Geeson and Bates would be desirable, but I suspect the sometimes rickety narrative might suffer even more if that happened. Geeson (whose first big movie was TO SIR WITH LOVE) is in almost every scene and does a reasonable job of holding the screen. This is partly because she doesn't have much competition. Cushing is kind of sleepwalking through his undemanding role, and Collins, though good, is only in a handful of scenes. Bates (pictured with Geeson above) has a wooden glassy-eyed passivity, looking both ominous and bored, that I didn't like at first but which eventually proved effective, and he gets to chew a little scenery near the end. Things go a bit batshit crazy at the climax, and the movie could have used a little more of that energy. [YouTube]