An utterly bewitching and fantastical film from the great Polish-born filmmaker Jerzy Skolimoski. An "abnormal" mental patient, Crossley (Alan Bates), tells a story of himself, which may or may not be true, to a young, confused looking Tim Curry during a mental institution run cricket match. He tells of how he self-imposed his way into the home of an experimental musique concrète composer, Anthony (John Hurt), who records all sorts of fascinating sounds and noises and then manipulates them with his mini-studio of electronic equipment, and his wife Rachel (Susannah York). Inside the flashback/flash forward/flash sideways, he tells them of a unique ability he has perfected, which he learned from an aboriginal medicine man while living in the Australian outback. It seems he can perform a shout that will kill anyone within a surrounding radius. He demonstrates "The Shout" to Anthony and unknowingly kills a local farmer. His presence in Anthony's home quickly becomes awkward and unwanted but he continues to force his stay with intimidation. He uses his mysterious mystical abilities to entrance Rachel into becoming almost rabid for him, and taunts Anthony with his conquest and powers. Anthony, humiliated and overpowered in his own home and life, searches desperately for a way to defeat Crossley; searches for the source of his "soul".
Skolimowski uses the music and sounds that are recorded by John Hurt's character on screen (in real life made by Rupert Hine) as the metaphysical soul to this cinematic nightmare; similar in the ways David Lynch uses sound design as both an audio and visually integral mood stabilizing component in his nightmare-dream poems, or how Nicolas Roeg uses fractured time and images to a disorientating, hypnotic effect. In fact, it feels very analogous to a Roeg film. Highly recommended.
