The Man in the Back Seat

This film is listed in my Aurum Encyclopedia of Horror, but although the ending could be interpreted as supernatural, I suspect that the intention was less other-worldly.

Derren Nesbitt plays two-bit thug Tony, who ropes in his pal Frank (Keith Faulkner) to help him turn over a bookie at the dog track. Tony coshes the bookie but realises afterwards that the security bag containing the day's takings is chained to the man's arm. The pair bundle their injured victim into the back seat of his car and try to figure out what to do next. Nothing goes their way, their situation going from bad to worse as the night progresses, with the bookie's condition becoming critical.

Less horror, more noir-ish thriller, The Man In The Back Seat sees director Vernon Sewell piling on the contrivances to keep the viewer squirming uncomfortably in their seat. The car Tony and Frank are driving suffers a flat tyre; the pair run out of petrol; a policeman interrupts them at a very inopportune moment; and Frank's wife Jean (Carol White) asks far too many awkward questions. When what was supposed to be a simple robbery becomes a case of murder, the guys do a runner, and this is where the film becomes a tad ambiguous: while Frank is driving, he sees the dead bookie in the back seat and loses control, the car hurtling off the edge of a bridge. Was the ghost of their victim taking revenge, or was it a case of Frank's conscience causing him to crack up? I believe the latter, but obviously Phil Hardy, editor of my Encyclopedia, thought otherwise.

6/10 -- A well-acted B-movie that achieves the desired edge-of-the-seat response regardless of how preposterous it is at times.