Fear in the Night

In London, the twenty-two year-old Peggy Heller (Judy Geeson) meets and marries the school teacher Robert Heller (Ralph Bates) after recovering from a nervous breakdown. Robert works in the countryside in a private school owned by the headmaster Michael Carmichael (Peter Cushing), who is married with Molly Carmichael (Joan Collins). On the eve of moving to the country with her husband, Peggy spends the night at the board house of Mrs. Beamish (Gillian Lind) and is attacked by a man with mechanical arm in her room. Mrs. Beamish calls the doctor but they do not believe in Peggy. On the next morning, she heads with Robert to the country and moves to the cottage in the school. But soon Peggy is attacked by the same man but Robert does not believe in her. Then she meets The Headmaster and realizes that he has a mechanical arm. What will happen next?

"Fear in the Night" is an intriguing and mysterious thriller by Hammer with Judy Geeson in the lead role. The storyline is good but could have more characters to increase the mystery of the identity of the attacker. But it is worthwhile watching this thriller. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Um Grito Dentro da Noite" ("A Scream in the Night")

While recovering from a nervous breakdown, Peggy Heller (Judy Geeson) is stalked and attacked by a one-armed man. Not surprisingly, due to Peggy's mental state, no one believes her.

After moving back in with her husband at a boy's school, Peggy meets the headmaster (Peter Cushing), who happens to have a very familiar disability! It's not long before Peggy is attacked again.

FEAR IN THE NIGHT is a wicked little mystery-thriller from Hammer Studios that keeps the viewer guessing. Ms. Geeson is believable in her tormented role. Cushing is brilliant as usual. Joan Collins co-stars in one of the best roles she's ever played!...

"Fear in the Night" is a somewhat contrived and lesser Hammer picture from 1972 that somehow still manages to work up a fair amount of suspense and one or two chilling moments. The film concerns young Peggy Heller (excellently portrayed by Judy Geeson), who, after suffering a nervous breakdown, moves with her new teacher husband to a large, private boys' school on 1,200 acres of English countryside. Poor Peggy is soon made the victim of a string of attacks by a stalker with a prosthetic hand, and her lot is hardly made more comfortable by the presence of the very strange headmaster (Peter Cushing) or his haughty young wife (Joan Collins). The film builds to a surprise ending of sorts that probably won't surprise many, especially those viewers who have already seen a certain classic Vincent Price horror movie from 1958. Still, the film does offer some compensations, including very fine performances by the actors just mentioned, as well as by Ralph Bates, playing Peggy's husband. Viewers will appreciate just how fine the acting is, perhaps, after a second viewing, with a greater knowledge of all the characters' secret motivations. The film also offers some beautiful scenery, both in terms of the autumnal Hertfordshire countryside AND Ms. Collins herself. Thirty-nine years old here, and nine years prior to incarnating TV's ultimate bitch on wheels, Alexis Carrington Colby Dexter, etc. on "Dynasty," she really is quite gorgeous to look at. (Sadly, she and Cushing, though playing man and wife, share no screen time whatsoever in this picture.) But the film belongs to Geeson, who appears in every single scene (with one major exception). Just five years after her "To Sir, With Love" debut, she turns in a very credible and ingratiating performance. Indeed, it is the sterling acting by all four principals that elevates this rather pedestrian thriller into something quite admirable indeed.

Often effective British thriller features a tip-top cast(Joan Collins, Peter Cushing, Ralph Bates, Judy Geeson), but suffers from a lack of originality as this is, for the most part, a rehash of similar motifs explored in earlier British horror films like PARANOIAC and NIGHTMARE, which themselves derived from the brilliant French thriller DIABOLIQUE. Still, the good outweighs the bad and there are plenty of nice, genuine jolts.

It took Peggy Heller a long time to recover from the trauma of a brutal physical assault, suffered in her youth. When she married Robert, he provided her with the love and reassurance she craved for and the two settled down in a pretty house in the grounds of the public school where Robert was a master. But the headmaster of the school is not what he seems and Penny is convinced he means to harm her - is her fear a figment of her tortured imagination or are there forces at work that intend to manipulate her anxieties with fatal consequences?

Fear in the night, a suspense thriller with sinister undertones, benefits greatly from Judy Geeson who is mesmerising as a woman who had suffered a nervous breakdown, and is quite mentally fragile. The plot is pleasingly twisted and the climax suitably dramatic. It's a bit drawn out in the end, but it's an efficient thriller that is about uncertainty around what is real and what is imaginary. There are good performances from Peter Cushing and Joan Collins. It's well-handled by Freddie Francis, the prowling camerawork is effective, and the tension is well constructed till the end.