Ironically enough, 'Bunny Lake is Missing' actually was missing for years - not listed in movie guides, not on VHS, only rarely making a ghostly appearance on the late late show.
Fortunately it's being remade with a major young star, Reese Witherspoon. Can't wait to see it, Witherspoon was really good in a movie with Keifer Sutherland where she plays a teen runaway.
So as a result of the remake the original is due out on DVD! So technology really does lead to better living.
BLIM is a very well-made, scary movie. Don't watch it alone, unless you are not easily made, well, uneasy. Not a slasher type movie, or a 'watch out it's going to get you ' scariness, but a psychological thriller.
Like other movies from the 1960's set in Europe, Bunny Lake is austere and stark, the characters have an emotionally remote manner, as if in a trance. Other examples are Alfie, Blow-up, Georgy Girl, and the horrifying Repulsion, the last of which if you are going to try to watch at all, you should not do alone, and you should be warned that it's no picnic watching even Catherine Deneuve come totally unglued while no one seems to suspect a thing.
The various settings in the movie, that should be quaint, innocuous or at worst drab but end up being terrifying in their shadowy oddness. A children's day care center, an apartment, a hospital, and a 'doll hospital'.
Maybe the discordant soundtrack of various whistle-y pan pipe -y sounds is a big reason for the desolate mood of the film.
You just fall in love with beatific Carol Lynley, she is adorable in this and very brave, after all if we are having to watch this nightmare her character is actually living it.
Supporting cast boasts kindly detective Sir Larry Olivier, leering neighbor Noel Coward and high-handed brother Keir Dullea.
If you enjoy this one, you may also enjoy 'The Shuttered Room' another scary flick from 1960s Britain with Miss Lynley being threatened by dastardly Oliver Reed as an evil country lout. Haven't seen it in decades but it scared us as children.
