Welcome to another FRIGHTening review here at B-Movie Enema!

Quick! What was the first slasher film? The one that created the subgenre that would dominate the horror section of 80s video stores and late night cable TV? I bet you’re thinking Halloween. Or maybe you muttered to yourself, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” If you really wanted to flex some horror muscle or just simply sound like a smarty pants, you might have mentioned Black Christmas. Hell, I think I just heard someone shout Hitchcock’s Psycho.

I don’t know if there is any one real answer, but I want to enter 1971’s Fright into the conversation.

Fright was directed by Peter Collinson. Collinson worked fairly regularly from 1967 until 1980. Largely, he made crime dramas and high-tension thrillers. However, in 1969, he made the movie he’d probably be best known for, The Italian Job, starring Michael Caine and Benny Hill. During the post-production of the 1980 adventure film The Earthling, Collinson discovered he was fatally ill with lung cancer. He died shortly after at the age of 44.

When it comes to Fright, the reason why I think it really should be entered into the discussion of what’s the first slasher film isn’t so much a slasher, but it is hugely influential for a specific type of slasher. You see, there are different types of slashers. Most of them will have a body count of some sort, but not all slashers are the same. Instead, they land in one of two categories. One is the type of slasher that follows the Friday the 13th style. These are what Siskel and Ebert referred to as the “mad slashers.” Sometimes they were monsters like Jason Voorhees post-Part VI or Freddy Krueger. Sometimes they are just an otherwise normal guy who has a serious boner for killing everyone around them (sometimes to get to a woman he has an unhealthy attraction to). The other category is the “stalker.” Stalkers aren’t necessarily big killers, but they have a target, and they are hyper-focused on that target. That puts everyone around the target in danger of harm or death. This was the killer in 1974’s Black Christmas, or, I suppose, Norman Bates, though I’m open to the idea that maybe he is both a stalker and a mad slasher.

This was also the original concept for Michael Myers in John Carpenter’s Halloween. After Myers’ return in Halloween IV, Myers fell more into the Voorhees/Krueger camp, where he is supernaturally motivated and strong. In the first film, Myers simply escaped from a mental institution and got interested in killing babysitters. I want you to keep that in mind as I go through this review. I think you’re going to hear some things that are kind of familiar to that seminal 1978 babysitter-stalking thriller from Carpenter.

We are introduced to a college girl named Amanda. She’s played by Susan George, who is having a fantastic 1971. She’s in this movie, Die Screaming, Marianne, and, maybe most notably, Straw Dogs with Dustin Hoffman. She arrives at the home of Helen and Jim Lloyd, a couple for whom she has been hired to babysit their child, Tara (actually a boy, not a girl), to make a little extra cash. If Helen Lloyd looks familiar, she should, especially to James Bond fans. That’s Honor Blackman, the all-time most memorable Bond Girl of them all – Pussy Galore.

Helen is pleasant enough, but there are red flags that Amanda picks up on right away. Helen is a touch guarded. She was nervous about answering the door. She wasn’t so sure about letting Amanda inside until she was reminded she was sent to babysit. She makes sure to bolt a heavy-duty lock on the door and even double-checks it before walking away from the door. When Amanda falls behind Helen going up the stairs to meet Tara and what Amanda believes is Helen’s husband, Jim, Helen is quick to ask if everything is okay with her. She was only delayed following to set down her coat and books.

The big red flag comes when Helen finds that Jim has left the cat, Spooky, in the boy’s bed (though it really is a crib, which seems odd for a three-year-old, but what do I know). She scolds Jim and harshly throws the cat out of the bed. She doesn’t mind Tara playing with Spooky, but she has read stories about how cats sleep with children and smother them to death. It’s not like it never happened, but the idea of “cats stealing children’s breath” is an old wives’ tale. This colors Helen as someone who is less overly protective and more overly worried about harm coming to her or her child.

While Jim is friendlier, he’s also kind of odd too. He is interested in how Amanda is studying child welfare at the local technical college. He does mention they only moved to the house a couple of months ago. They don’t know much about the surrounding area. He comments on the fact that the house is a bit creepy and creaky, but they haven’t done much with the place yet, including the musty smell. When he jokes about how it’s quiet there, to the exception of a few ghosts and poltergeists, Helen snaps at him again.

Amanda isn’t willing to pry too much. She knows the Lloyds are going out to celebrate something, but it’s not something they are willing to elaborate on. Every sound and a few specific words trigger concern, particularly with Helen. I mean, the house itself is old and has squeaks and knocking pipes and oddities already, but Helen Lloyd seems to be exasperating all the nerves around being in an old, dark house in the middle of nowhere alone.

But you better believe that we are going to be finding out very soon why she is the way she is.

I will say, as we wait for things to escalate in this thriller, that Susan George is one hell of a fetching lady. She’s not just pretty and easy to watch, but she’s also very good at playing this kind of innocent young woman who isn’t exactly willing to rock the boat with the couple that she’s been hired by to watch their kid. Even when Helen loses her temper or they leave every reason for her to ask questions, she kind of keeps her nose clean. However, when she reveals that she studies child welfare, you know she knows that something is at least slightly peculiar with the Lloyds, if not potentially dangerous for Tara. It’s a good, subtle performance.

Amanda makes herself some tea and finds an old teddy bear in the kitchen. She dances a little bit with the bear and is just enjoying her time alone until she hears a strange tapping. She spots that the kitchen faucet is dripping. She turns that off, but the exact same rapping sound carries on. It sounds like someone might be tapping on the window.

Amanda opens the door in the kitchen and asks if anyone is there. That’s when she’s attacked by the clothes line, which is spinning and tapping against a tree branch. After the scare of her life, she is satisfied with what she sees. She goes back inside, but when she isn’t looking at the windows, we see someone walking past outside. She sits down with a drink and reads the paper, but the lights go out. Soon, once the lights come back on, Tara pops up asking for a story. When she picks him up to take him back to his bedroom, she sees a man in the window and screams.

That’s followed by the doorbell ringing with a man asking to be let in in a creepy voice. It’s revealed to be Amanda’s boyfriend, Chris. While she considers letting him in after being pissed off at him for scaring her, at the restaurant, we learn that Helen and Tim are not celebrating an anniversary like Amanda figured. They are celebrating a divorce.

I really like the chemistry going on between Chris and Amanda. She lets him in, and he wants to get to the making out, but she is not interested in that whatsoever. It’s playful and kind of lighthearted. When they decide to just talk, he says, “I bet you have the most beautiful breasts.” I agree, Chris. Amanda says she’s mad because he was stalking around the house, but he says he only came straight up to the door. He didn’t knock at or look into any other window. He suggests that maybe it was Mr. Lloyd.

Amanda says he left a while ago with Helen Lloyd. Chris says that Jim is not Helen’s husband. He heard this from a lady who used to work for Helen’s aunt, who owned this house. Helen Lloyd’s actual husband is named Brian. He was sent to the insane asylum for trying to kill Helen. Frightened and angry at Chris, he apologizes and eventually convinces her to let him get a little romance from her.

At the restaurant, Helen and Jim meet Dr. Gareth Cordell for their celebration. He is Helen’s doctor, and he knows she’s pretty tense and nervous. Helen and Jim are looking to leave the country, and he will get a new job in Brussels. Helen is particularly anxious and hopeful because she knows that Brian isn’t just a little crazy. He’s unhinged and obsessed with her.

Helen calls home to check on Amanda while Chris acts like a bafoon and tries to distract her. When Helen says they won’t be too much longer, she kicks Chris out. I like that Chris is nothing but a prankster and a jokester. He doesn’t take anything seriously and is always trying to scare Amanda, likely in that immature way in which he expects her to jump into his arms for protection. When he does get serious, he tells her to “shut up” when she protests about him unbuttoning her dress. When she gets mad at him for anything, it’s always, “I’m only joking!” and “It’s just jokes!”

He would be quite popular on social media when he says out-of-pocket shit on strangers’ timelines.

She sends him out the door, and when she closes the door, he’s attacked by an unseen assailant and gets his face beaten in a few times. Shortly, a man rings the doorbell while Amanda tries to watch a horror movie about zombies on TV. She thinks it’s Chris there to scare her or trying to paw at her some more. She hears someone tapping on the window. She looks out to see someone she doesn’t recognize which terrifies her enough to call the restaurant to talk to Helen. Just as Helen comes to the phone, the man outside pulls the cords to kill the phone line at the Lloyd home.

Helen believes it had to be Amanda. Who else would know they are there? Why would they ask for “Mrs. Lloyd?” Jim thinks she’s overreacting. Gareth says this is clearly something he’s been concerned about. She’s assuming that it’s Brian, but it’s just her overactive imagination and paranoia. In fact, he’s gonna call the asylum now and prove it wasn’t Brian causing anything for Amanda to be scared of…

…and Brian has escaped.

While the unknown man tries climbing through a window, Chris returns to the door, bloodied and beaten, and falls inside. A man runs into the door behind Chris and says he’s a neighbor who heard some commotion outside. The man carries Chris inside and tries to call for help. Amanda tells the man that the phone won’t work. She was talking to Helen, and it cut off. He assumes that Helen will get help then, but Amanda says she was not able to tell her that someone was outside.

While Helen and Jim try to hurry home, the “neighbor” says that Chris’s heart stopped and he’s dead. While Amanda grieves for Chris, Jim is run off the road, delaying them even more from getting home. At the police station, Gareth reports that there is trouble at the Lloyd house. The police won’t act until a full report is filed… which is happening through the slowest man on the planet at the front desk. Back at the house, the “neighbor” is consoling a sobbing Amanda. She asks him if they can leave now, but as he looks at her, he can only see Helen’s crying face.

And that is only driving him crazier.

Yes, this is not a helpful neighbor. It is Brian Lloyd. He did escape the asylum and planned on finding Helen and Jim and getting back to his crazy ways. It isn’t until a report comes in about a woman who was strangled that the police realize that Brian is on his way to Helen’s home. At the house, Amanda remembers to check on Tara. Brian, who has now officially introduced himself with that name (not that he is married to Helen), tells her he’s probably fine. He also says that maybe the man she thought she saw outside might now be inside.

Before she attempts to escape the house, realizing this guy might just be a complete madman, she asks if this guy can stay behind to explain to the police. He says he can’t take that chance and locks her back inside. He then talks about how he hates the clock in the foyer of the house and how it laughs at him. He then goes upstairs and tells her that he’s going take a look at “their” baby. Then he refers to Amanda as “Helen.”

Using her skills in the study of welfare, Amanda decides to play along with Brian. She pretends to be Helen, whom he clearly seems to be speaking to when he speaks to her. He takes her in his arms, and they dance in Tara’s room. He pretends it’s a happy moment with his wife. Amanda is fucking terrified. There’s a particularly tense scene in which he begins kissing her body, and there’s a series of intercut shots of Helen enjoying it and Amanda tearfully and anxiously struggling to breathe before she finally lets out a scream of terror.

While not specifically shown, it is heavily implied by Amanda’s ripped pantyhose and Brian being asleep that he raped her during his delusions. She tries to escape the house once more with Tara. It’s revealed at this point that Chris is also still alive. Brian confronts Amanda and Tara in the foyer and asks them to stay. He then locks all the doors, trapping them inside. Brian tells her now she will know what it’s like to have nothing but locked doors around her.

Chris comes to Amanda’s aid and tries to fight off Brian, but the crazed man bludgeons the already severely injured Brian to death. Amanda grabs Tara and escapes out of the front door just as the police arrive, but Brian drags them back inside before the police can help her. Brian sees that Helen arrives home. A standoff occurs when he keeps Amanda inside with the kid.

The cops attempt to bring in a sharpshooter to kill him, but he never quite gives himself enough of a target to fire at. While Gareth tries to de-escalate the situation by talking sense into Brian, the cops are still looking at other ways they can get to the madman. They consider a gas cannister but it might endanger the kid. They would really love to storm in, grab him, and rough his ass up, but they know that would only put Amanda and Tara in even worse danger. Gareth is unsuccessful at bringing Brian outside, so the doctor asks the cops not to provoke Brian any further because he absolutely means business if he says he will harm either of his hostages.

Brian demands that they allow Helen to come inside to talk to him while holding a shard of glass from a mirror up to the throats of both Amanda and Tara. He says if Helen goes inside to talk to him, he will let Amanda and Tara go. If she does not agree, he will kill himself, but not before killing Amanda and Tara. Helen steps up and says she will go inside to not just save her baby and the babysitter, but to finally end this whole thing with the man who has terrorized her for years.

Inside, Amanda tries to convince Brian to go outside. He starts by saying he’s scared because he knows that Helen doesn’t want anything to do with him. She even suggests that Helen doesn’t even care about their child. As Helen prepares to go inside, the cops give her a gas cannister to use when she’s ready. Through the chaos inside between Amanda and Brian, he sees her as Helen. He’s about to slice her face with the shard of glass when the cops say Helen is prepared to go inside as long as Amanda and Tara are let go immediately. After she goes inside, he is to come outside WITH Helen.

Helen enters the home and Brian locks all of them inside. He says he never intended to let them go. As long as Tara is with him, Helen will come to him. Helen drops the gas cannister while trying to get Tara so they can all go outside. He picks it up and throws it, releasing the gas. Brian begins to strangle Helen, but Amanda slices his face with the shard of glass. She runs outside and the cops are about to go in when he comes out with the shard of glass up against Tara’s throat. Helen comes out of the house to convince Brian to leave with her and Tara. She’ll keep him safe and protected from all of the people who don’t like him.

Brian finally agrees to give the little boy over to Helen, finally bringing Tara out of danger. Helen slowly backs away while Brian slowly falls to his knees. Now, you might think, in many of these types of movies, that you’re going to see the cops rush in and arrest Brian or unload some guns on him.

Well, Fright has something different in mind.

Yup… For killing Chris, Amanda decides to end this motherfucker herself. What’s more, she’s a great shot. She nails the dude right in the fucking forehead, killing him instantly. That’s how the movie ends too! Take that, ya limey cunt!

Fright is a surprisingly good movie that has largely flown under all the radars. Admittedly, the first half of the movie is by far stronger than the second, but that’s also kind of nuanced too. The first half of the movie is where you can see how it influenced early slashers like Halloween and some of the other films that came in between that and Friday the 13th. You have a young, vulnerable woman who is alone in a house and charged with caring for an even more defenseless child. There are lots of strange things happening around the house. There’s a horny guy usually somewhere. There’s a guy moving around in the background or through obscured places. Then, the real threat enters the house. That’s great stuff.

Susan George, aside from being incredibly sexy, is very good at acting extremely terrified. Additionally, Honor Blackman is really bringing it as this other type of terrified woman. She’s lived through the present reality that George’s character is dealing with. Both have dealt with the clear and present danger. One is currently dealing with the trauma that comes after that physical danger. The other will have years of trying to deal with what she dealt with that night.

The second half of the movie, while much slower-paced and retreating into a more traditional thriller, is still anchored by the utter terror Susan George has to emote. It was probably a pretty draining shoot for those scenes. She has a fantastic ability to give a good horror face. You really think there are people fucking with her on set and just constantly holding sharp shards of glass up to that pretty face.

The last twenty minutes are a tense standoff between the maniac inside the house with the terrified young woman and the police outside. That portion of the movie is the weakest, but still very tense. It’s just a little too slow-paced for a movie that was really cooking for the first 70 minutes. Still, I highly recommend this movie. If you are a fan of early slashers like Halloween, you can definitely see that John Carpenter had to have seen and enjoyed this movie, and used it as a bit of a template for his film.

Next week, it’s the return of Cannon Films. And this one is one of their big production films. It’s the 1985 World War I biopic about one of the most famous femme fatales in all of history – Mata Hari. Join me in seven days for a whole lot of Sylvia Kristel.