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7 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
Underrated, unknown near masterpiece psychological thriller, 18 February 2004
8/10
Author: chrisdfilm from los angeles, ca.

Richard Sarafian is a decidedly underrated director. After finally seeing this, it's satisfying to report his VANISHING POINT was not a flash-in-the-pan. FRAGMENT...does not move at the same pace, nor does it get the viewer involved quite as quickly, but once you're about twenty minutes in, you're hooked until the end as Sarafian and screenwriter Dehn continually manipulate reality and our perceptions of it, along with lead character David Hemmings' perceptions of it. Really brilliant in the way it portrays a matter-of-fact unfolding of events that seem like a conventional, yet still insidious conspired-murder-by-blackmail-ring plot. But then we're constantly shown by the dialogue and actions of other characters that these events we've just witnessed may never have occurred. As an audience, we're constantly being shifted back and forth, momentarily convinced that recovering-addict-turned-successful-writer Hemmings is undergoing paranoid delusions, then the next moment convinced there really is a vast conspiracy against him and his investigation into his rich aunt's death. Disturbing and constantly involving, sucking the viewer in until the shocking conclusion. Unfortunately, the film's one real liability, which may in fact be the reason for some viewers' antipathy toward this film, is its totally inappropriate music score. Not only is the score mixed too loud on the soundtrack, it repeatedly draws attention to itself, often diffusing the effects Sarafian is trying to achieve. If only they had gotten someone like John Dankworth who could have composed a similar jazzy score but much more subtly and in keeping with the film's rhythms. Of course, even better would have been Ennio Morricone, someone who had already scored many Italian giallo thrillers that had attempted to play with reality in a similar way. Whomever hired Johnny Harris made a big mistake. His score is the one thing that keeps this from being a genuine little masterpiece.

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6 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
Superb music score, 30 December 2006
10/10
Author: boogiejuice69 from United Kingdom

British cult classic with a memorable music score by Johnny Harris featuring a small tight group of top class jazz players including Harold McNair on screaming flute. Re-recorded cuts from this soundtrack feature on the 1970 Johnny Harris - Movements album (issued on CD by Warner Bros in 2002) which is highly recommended. Including flute and bongo driven main theme "Stepping Stones" (named after the secret society in the film) which has developed a life of it's own - used by Levi Jeans on it's Kung Fu TV ad in 1997, featured on film soundtracks, used by the BBC as the theme to a season of seventies cult film and played in clubs by DJ's to jazz, funk and northern soul crowds for almost four decades!

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3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Excellent and sadly unknown mystery thriller!, 22 March 2008
8/10
Author: The_Void from Beverley Hills, England

Fragment of Fear is a film that has somehow slipped under the radar since its release in 1970 and that's a real shame as while the film does have a few narrative problems; this is excellently produced and well worked mystery thriller that really does deserve to be more seen. The film is halfway between a murder mystery and a psychological thriller and director Richard C. Sarafian gives both halves of the film equal credence as the focus is stretched across the central character's questionable mental health and the murder of his aunt that he is investigating. The central character is Tim Brett; he's a reformed drug addict living in Italy. He returns to London when his aunt is found murdered and begins asking people who knew his aunt questions. It's not long before strange things start happening to him; his flat is broken into, he receives a letter that was written on his own typewriter and gets strange phone calls. It soon transpires that someone doesn't want Tim investigating. But naturally, considering he was a drug user, nobody will believe him...

Some have labelled this film as a British Giallo; I don't agree that such a thing exists personally, but Fragment of Fear does feature some staples of Italy's finest type of film. The murder mystery is a given, but we also have an unseen killer and adding to that is the fact that many Giallo's feature a lead character with a fractured state of mind. The film is lead by the great David Hemmings who puts in a good performance. I was unsure of how he would across as a former drug user given his debonair screen presence, but he actually fits into this role really well and is not hard to believe. Director Richard C. Sarafian keeps the film streamlined and the action focused on the mystery which ensures that Fragment of Fear is always interesting and entertaining. The film gets more exciting as it goes along and it all boils down to a good ending that provides a nice twist and also manages a bit of ambiguity. Overall, it's a real shame that this film is so obscure as it deserves a wider audience and hopefully it will soon be picked up for a DVD release. Recommended if you can find it!

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3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
An atmospheric thriller with a startling twist, 15 September 2000
Author: FilmFlaneur from London

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

SPOILER WARNING

This is a little known gem from the underrated director of the cult road movie Vanishing Point which plays with audience expectations - before undermining them completely in an audacious and unexpected twist.

Fans of David Hemmings, who appreciate his work at this time in Blow Up and Deep Red ( to name two of his most famous cult collaborations) will be delighted to discover this performance. Minor characters are also well drawn and much of the location work in London and elsewhere is atmospheric and excellent.

The central concern of the film is Hemmings' suspicion that there is a conspiracy afoot attempting, amongst other things, to undermine his sanity. Some of the elements here recall Polanski's work on creating an effect of mental instability in his Repulsion.

His increasingly frantic and neurotic attempts to unravel the mystery leads the viewers to expect a tidy denouement, when the true facts are revealed and Hemmings' self esteem and position is restored. Hemmings is too likeable and too much a central figure upon whom the viewer depends to make judgements to *really* be at fault...

When in the last moments of the film there is no tidy conclusion to the matter, save the idea that Hemmings is actually unbalanced, and that what has happened has been the result of his delusions, it is far more shocking than a more conventional 'tidy' explanation.. the plot lines, the unexplained elements of the film, are left trailing, just as Hemming's character's sanity is left in shreds. Hemming's final collapsed journey in a wheelchair, both crippled by his experiences and mentally exhausted, is very disturbing. It is as if the viewer is staring into a bottomless pit of madness, where all certainty is stripped away, and ranks with the great moments of horror film.

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4 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Paranoiac terror, 29 September 2001
Author: lordhack_99 from hingham, mass., usa

I thought that this was a brilliant thriller. Hemmings's character is the perfect foil, an admitted addict. He is like a mute who cannot scream at the horror enveloping him. Paranoia and fecklessness bounce off a genuine conspiracy. The tension is almost unbearable.

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0 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
scream, flute, scream!!!, 17 April 2008
5/10
Author: jonathan-577 from Canada

This British - very British - thriller trades on the good name of David Hemmings, who at this time still had substantial "Blow Up" cachet left to p*ss away. His jaded ex-junkie finds his aunt murdered one sunny vacation, and sets out to find out whodunit amid many threatening overtures from big nasties. The main selling point here is a wild and wholly inappropriate soundtrack from one Johnny Harris - Hemmings is just shlepping around the funeral doing nothing in particular, and in comes that damned 'screaming flute' with attendant bongos. It's not embarrassingly bad, but it is dull for long stretches of dialogue in between its set pieces, and for all its attempts to be tense and/or creepy the plot's passing resemblance to Argento's "Deep Red" (also with Hemmings) does this no favours at all.

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