Young Carol Kane set the pattern for her screen persona as a kindly but dim bulb teen in this dark kitchen sink drama, set in small town Ontario during World War II. Her older brother home on leave brings with him a worthless army buddy, who forces himself upon her after a night of drunken carousing. Left pregnant she faces the wrath of her imbecilic father (Donald Pleasence, an astonishing performance), who cooks up a monstrous scheme to "save the family honor" which culminates in one of the most grotesque finales ever put to film. Bleak and utterly harrowing, this is the scratchy flip side to all those cloying "nostalgia" flicks of its era and a fierce condemnation of the patriarchal social system out of control. For all its seriousness of purpose, though, it's also very funny, rude Canadian humor permeating even its worst situations as the appalling characters show all their warts with jolly gusto. Though unflinchingly realistic (period detail and speech patterns free of anachronisms) it's structured like a horror film (later director Fruet's specialty, unsurprisingly) and the final moment plays like the punch line of an especially tasteless joke. Not for all tastes, but recommended to those who caught the mordant hilarity of the equally poignant but merciless WELCOME TO THE DOLL'S HOUSE.
