The story
Sarah has just returned from weeks in hospital following a riding accident that has left her blind. She is coming to terms with her new condition, helped by her relatives the Rexton family - her Uncle George, Aunt Betty and cousin Sandy with whom she is staying in their large country house. Her boyfriend Steve is also still there for her.
Life generally for the Rextons is good although there is an unpleasant incident when George's car is deliberately scratched. This might possibly be related to an altercation with a man wearing cowboy-style boots who was annoyed when he was splashed by George's car when it drove past him and who made clear - silently but firmly - that he wasn't happy. Sandy is also excited about the prospect of meeting up with a potential new boyfriend. Sarah is continuing to ride despite her accident with the support of Steve who also buys her a new horse. Soon she will be leaving for a physiotherapy course in London and Steve hopes it won't jeopardise their relationship.
While Sarah is out with Steve, the family receive a visitor - the same young man who was splashed by George. When Sarah returns Steve almost goes in with her but she says she feels fine to go in by herself. She finds the house quiet but thinks little of it - not realising that she is walking past the bodies of the family who have all been murdered. Later to her horror she does discover their bodies and tries to get help. She does find the gardener Mr Barker but he has been seriously wounded and dies before he can tell her exactly what happened. All this is dreadful enough but unfortunately for Sarah the killer has realised he has left behind vital evidence that could incriminate him at the scene of the crime and he is coming back to the house...
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| Sarah (Mia Farrow) finds herself stalked in the house |
Review
Alongside And Soon the Darkness this is one of the films written by Brian Clemens that is seen as a foundation for Thriller. In some respects it is a step closer to the TV show given its focus on an upper middle class family living in a large English country house - a set-up often followed in the show. There is even an American star as per so many Thriller episodes although - intriguingly - in this film she is playing an English rather than an American character which does make her a more natural fit with the family. Suspense is very much to the fore and the killings take place off-screen as occurred predominantly in Thriller (and And Soon the Darkness), as per Brian Clemens's preferences that violence should largely be left in the viewer's imagination. Suspense is also maintained by only depicting the killer by his boots until the very end. This makes the film a whodunit and the focus on the killer's distinctive footwear is echoed years later in The Next Voice You See - the Thriller episode most resembling this overall, not least in its focus on blindness.
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| An early sighting of the killer, his face not revealed until the final scenes |
However in other key respects this moves further away from what would be the Thriller style. Perhaps key to this are the American director and American composer - Richard Fleischer and Elmer Bernstein. Unlike Robert Fuest and Laurie Johnson who worked on the earlier film these were not figures who had worked with Brian Clemens before and while both do good work here they are not as in tune with his approach and the film has a more mainstream, almost Hollywood feel. Elmer Bernstein's music is generally suitably unnerving but in its more strident sections (most notably the theme music) it almost feels more fitting to an adventure or Western movie, possibly influenced by the killer's cowboy boots and the rural and horse-riding scenes. The most dramatic difference though is the very graphic blood-letting - while the killings are not depicted the gruesome aftermath is all too evident. In some respects this is more realistic than the sanitised images of death generally seen in Thriller but it is all rather stark and to my mind detracts from the film although without doubt some viewers (especially more recent ones) may prefer the graphic approach.
The film essentially comprises two parts with a kind of resolution after around sixty minutes but which then leads off into a new set of predicaments for Sarah. In the final twenty-five minutes or so she endures various miseries which strike me as gratuitous and spoiling the impact of the stronger first hour. Whether the events in those final stages - or indeed the blood-letting earlier one - were fully scripted by Brian Clemens or owed more to the director is unknown but they were very different from the more subtle approach adopted in the earlier film and Thriller. Maybe there was a determination to do things differently and produce something more "shocking"; in general an attempt to vary approach is commendable but here it seems not to be for the best.
Sexual themes are suggested early on as we see the killer around pubs and cinemas, shots well-directed from his perspective. He reads a soft porn
magazine, seems to be focusing on the bodies of women and may have been to the
cinema where some sexually violent films have been broadcast. Some of the interchanges
he has in these scenes show he has a short fuse which could explode into more
serious violence. The suggestion may be of him being influenced by these images - and perhaps that other violent offenders are influenced in similar ways - or maybe as a violent, sexually-charged man he is attracted to such images rather than being influenced by them. Unlike And Soon the Darkness, none of the violence perpetrated later in the film has a sexual aspect. Indeed no substantial motive for the killings is covered on-screen and the only explicit cause would seem to be his annoyance at George Rexton splashing him although there may have been other reasons not depicted on-screen. Such a threadbare motive for such appalling violence seems extraordinary and while not impossible it does seem inadequate to explain such events. Maybe this was part of a deliberate attempt to create more mystery about the killer and amazement that someone could do such things based on such little provocation but perhaps the effect is more bewildering than shocking.
The performance of Mia Farrow as the tragic Sarah is exceptional and definitely the highlight of the film. She handles the English accent with great aplomb and with utter conviction. However even more remarkable is her performance as someone who has only recently lost their sight, a different kind of depiction to playing blind characters who have long lost their sight and are more confident in dealing with sightlessness (e.g. the blind students in The Eyes Have It or Stan Kay in The Next Voice You See.) More generally her role is very demanding with her appearing in almost every scene and having to handle strong emotions and plenty of physical scenes but she does so outstandingly well.
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| Sarah finds that being outside the house is no refuge from terror |
The depiction of the gypsy community is best described as ambivalent. It does take some account of the ways in which they face stereotyping, hasty accusations and ostracism but nor does it entirely challenge stereotypes of them as offenders. It's probable such a film today would have steered clear of this ambivalence, either by not including gypsy characters altogether or by portraying them in a more clearly positive light.
The performances are generally good and it is particularly notable to see Norman Eshley in a heroic role as Steve, so different from his superb depiction of psychopath and serial killer Arthur Page in The Colour of Blood. That was the very first Thriller episode into production and his performance here may have put him "front of the queue" for a leading role in the new TV show. Lila Kaye as a gypsy woman also has a small but notable role and returned in another rural guise in the Series 1 episode A Place To Die.
The climax in many ways sums up the film's unfulfilled promise. It is certainly a dramatic and memorable one but not necessarily for the right reasons as it is a harrowing watch after all the ordeals Sarah has already had to face. In general the gratuitousness throughout the film stops it reaching the heights it could have done and what potentially could have been an excellent offering close to the standard of And Soon the Darkness ends up as being "merely" good. Perhaps with a director more in tune with Brian Clemens's more subtle preferences this would have been more successful.
As mentioned there may have been issues with the structure, including the script. My feeling is that the film had reached a satisfactory conclusion after sixty minutes but that was too short for a feature film so another twenty minutes or so were then added to make it the required length. That first hour or so would have been around the length of a Thriller episode and maybe this would have functioned better in such a contracted and more understated form within the TV show. Alternatively the events of the first hour could have been supplemented with more background, perhaps more development of the supporting characters to give them more backstory and make them more convincing figures within a whodunit formula. As it transpired the killer turned out to be someone who had scarcely featured beforehand and the whodunit formula generally works best when there is an array of well-developed suspects. Despite all these issues Blind Terror is still a fascinating and thought-provoking film and a key document in the origin of Thriller.
Notes
Two Thriller episodes revisited the theme of
blindness – The Eyes Have It and The Next Voice You See. Although the
former had a blonde heroine as in the film the closer resemblance in style is
to The Next Voice. In both stories
the blind character is pursued by a killer who knows he needs to eliminate
someone who can incriminate him. The Next Voice is also a whodunit and once again only the feet of the killer are
seen, this time wearing a very distinctive pair of shoes (something also emphasised via the sneakers of the killer in I'm the Girl He Wants To Kill although in that story he is clearly identified). However there is one
more small similarity with The Eyes Have It – Sarah is training in physiotherapy just like the blind students in the
TV episode.
There are also parallels with Nurse Will Make It Better. In the film Sarah is blinded in a riding accident while Charley is paralysed after falling from a horse in Nurse. Despite this trauma the hero of the film Steve maintains his relationship with Sarah just as the hero of Nurse Simon Burns sticks by Charley. Sarah's efforts to escape the killer pursuing her in the house also bear some similarity with similar events in I'm the Girl He Wants To Kill and The Next Voice You See.
George and Betty were also the names of another ill-fated middle-aged couple in In the Steps of a Dead Man.
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