Persecution

THE GRAVEYARD (aka: PERSECUTION) opens with young David Masters (Mark Weavers) drowning the family tabby in its own bowl of milk, due to David's belief that his mother loves the cat more than him. His mum, Carrie (Lana Turner) sets out to teach the lad a lesson.

Decades later, a sullen, adult David (Ralph Bates) is now married and a father himself. He takes his overwrought wife, Janie (Susan Farmer) and son to his mother's vast estate for his birthday. Mum's got a new cat, and goes about destroying David's life. Horror and death unfold, as we discover that Carrie's motives don't only involve her felines.

A nice, big ball of yarn, this movie is a perfect 1970's film, brimming with lunacy and senseless slaughter!

EXTRA POINTS FOR: #1- The cat cemetery at the center of the topiary maze! #2- The blazing hot Olga Georges-Picot as the new nurse, Monique! #3- Janie's hilarious trip down the stairs! #4- The utterly absurd, degrading finale!...

It's so sad to watch Lana Turner who made amazing drama and romance to do a horror movie at England in twlight's career, as l'd read somewhere that the most of critics deemed the 70' as lost decade to the cinema, l don't agree certainly but they had some reasons to said that, like this movie that is so unexplainable and disturbing, Lana plays a machiavellian mother who mishandle your son in extreme way of without regret, acceptable plot although it wasn't to every taste indeed, while the results in final could be understood as insane is funny to see a horrible revenge, probable the audience will be glad to see it!! the official DVD released here in Brazil's market was a bad copy, needs a upmost new restoration!!

Resume:

First watch: 2018 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 6.25

Once one of the queens of melodrama ("Peyton place " "imitation of life") and of the film noir ("the postman always rings twice") , Lana Turner whose career had waned in the sixties , followed Bette Davis' and Joan Crawford 's footsteps :she tried her hand at horror movies ;so you get what you expect: a festival of camp .

The most memorable scenes are to be found at the beginning and at the end of the film:the Xmas night , enhanced by carrols , in the gloomy room where Davis finds his presents, while the sound of mechanical soldiers is heard ; then his final revenge "I said : lap up!"

The screenplay is disjointed, the flashbacks -which feature Trevor howard,all the same!)are badly introduced in the story ; the atmosphere is rather disturbing , with the principal and her beloved cats that seem to be her real family , for she has her way to destroy her human one. An aging Turner's face adds to the lugubrious Gothic house .

A note about Olga-Georges Picot who plays Monique :in the late sixties/early seventies,this polyglot embassador's daughter was one of the most promising French actresses and played opposite very famous partners ; but her physique and her good looks went against her ,and by the mid-seventies ,she was relegated to soft porn material : in "persecution" ,her role already "predated" her future career:despondent about her failed career,she threw herself out of a window at the age of 57.

I found a copy of this movie in a thrift store, and since it only cost fifty cents, I figured what the heck? Probably I should mention that I'm not a die hard fan of British horror films, though I've seen a few that I've liked. I found this one unusual in several aspects. There's the casting of Lana Turner, of course, and she manages to be appropriately (and convincingly) hateful. But two other things struck me most about the movie, the first being was how effectively bleak the movie's atmosphere was; every scene felt grim and dark. Another thing was that the core story could have fit nicely in one of those notorious EC horror comic books. Note that I said, "the core" - as it is, the story in this movie is much too drawn out. While it never gets to be boring, it won't take viewers long to start asking the movie to simply get on with it, which it never does. This story may have worked as one of the stories in a horror anthology movie, but as it is, viewers will lose patience long before the movie reaches the end.

If you like seeing sick, narcissistic folks destroying each other, then I have a film for you..."Persecution"! It's a movie about two very sick people and the twisted relationship they have together.

The story begins with a young boy drowning his mother's beloved cat in a bowl of milk! Apparently, the cat was loved more than he was and he was sick of it and killed the poor animal. Animal lovers might not want to see this as it's pretty realistic.

Many years pass. The boy has grown up and is married with a baby. For some inexplicable reason, he brings his family to see his mother...a cold, uncaring manipulator...full of snide comments but no love whatsoever. Soon she hires a sexy new maid and you realize the 'maid' is basically a prostitute coming to destroy the son's marriage. But before this can happen, one of his mother's cats suphocates the baby...and this, combined with the seduction lead to very bad things...at which point the son snaps and spends the rest of the movie tormenting his soulless mother.

While the film is well made and Lana Turner is excellent as the evil mother (in fact, it's one of her best performances), you might wonder WHY...why would anyone want to watch it? After all, it's a very unpleasant film...though an odd and intriguing character study of the evil mom and her adult son. In fact, if the film was intended to be a prequel to "Psycho", it would have fit very nicely into the Hitchcock film...showing what led to Norman becoming such a dangerous psychopath.

By the way, there is a goof that made me laugh. The son digs up a grave and the body is a skeleton...yet the bones of the hand are fully articulated...like a college model. Real human skeletons completely fall apart as there is nothing to hold these bones together.