Frightmare (1974) User Reviews

Murder and Gore in the English Home Counties

[tim-764-291856 · 7/10 · 15 March 2012]

Pete Walker's 'Frightmare' is a gloriously gory mix of psychopathic and cannibalistic killings and pretty English cottages, all topped with all those naff '70's fashions, haircuts and British cars.

Walker regular Sheila Keith is the woman sent to an asylum fifteen years ago, along with her abetting husband. He's helpless when her cravings come back and assumed cured, she now reads tarot cards. Their daughter gets romantically involved with a young psychiatrist and when her younger, adopted sister starts going off the rails, the young doctor naturally wants to help.

She's actually helping find feeding matter - and their brains - for her step mother. And step mother uses an array of everyday tools and appliances to get to her subjects' juicy bits. Electric drills, pitchforks, you name it. There's plenty of reasonable looking blood at the right times and some great make up effects of everyday folk with half their heads missing.

Now, nearly forty years on it's more a chiller than a screamer but very effective nonetheless and certainly one of the better Brit horror flicks I've seen. I saw it on The Horror channel.

70's exploitation movie...could have been better...

[The_Void · 6/10 · 6 August 2005]

There were some great exploitation flicks made in the seventies; but unfortunately, Frightmare isn't one of them. That's not to say it's terrible, or even really bad; as the film definitely does have it's moments, but it's also very talky and the plotting is far too slow, which isn't what you want when you're watching a film that has supposed to have been made to entertain the gore fanatics of it's day. If the entire movie was as good as it's last half hour, I'd be on here praising it to high heaven right now; but for some reason, director Pete Walker has seen fit to make us sit through a sometimes interesting, but more often that not tedious first hour; which doesn't do anything that couldn't have been done in half the time. The plot follows murderer and cannibal by the name of Dorothy, who is sent to an asylum along with her devoted husband Edmund. They are released after fifteen years; and this proves a problem when it seems that the couple's daughter, Debbie, has inherited her mother's lust for killing. Step daughter Jackie tries to sort things out with her father, but that doesn't stop the mother and daughter team getting seriously into cranial DIY...

The atmosphere of the film is superbly sleazy, with the couple's isolated living place taking on the foreboding role of the film's central location. Insanity often makes for a theme that allows a film to present a great atmosphere, and Pete Walker has capitalised on that. Another thing he's capitalised on is power tools. Power Tools would come to great uses again in films such as The Driller Killer, The Toolbox Murders and, of course, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre; and it's obvious why they continue to get used in gory exploitation flicks. Things get very messy when you've got a deranged lunatic brandishing a power drill, and this serves as one of this film's main talking points. Walker makes best of the 'insane granny' theme too, ands he gets his lead actress to show how good she can be in that respect several times in the film. In the final half hour, the film really starts to come together and as the gore increases, the tension mounts and that is when this movie is at it's very best. When the film has to rely on it's script for intrigue; it falls down, and that pretty much sums up the first hour. I'd like to like this more; but just so you know, once the first hour has elapsed; you're in for a treat!

British Terror movie with chills , thills , genuinely disturbing shocks and lots of blood and gore

[ma-cortes · 6/10 · 15 January 2021]

It deals a psychopatic mum and her husband who have been locked at a mental institution for crimes they have previously committed . After long years, the vicious couple : Sheila Keith , Rupert Davies are freed , living at an easy and isolated farm . But then things go wrong , going on a criminal spree .If you like this , have you brain examined ! ..more than a bad dream ! World than you most shocking nightmare ! Daré you see the film that shocked the critics ? Far beyond a nightmare . What terrifying craving made her kill ... and kill..and kill...

Scary terror movie with disturbing chills , eerie intrigue , twisted suspense and violent events with gory scenes . It is far better written and played than you might expect , if the first part with two daughters living apart from them results to be slow-moving as well as boring, lacking exposition, but when appears the creepy marriage : Sheila Keith and Rupert Davis things get better . It packs a simple and basic formula , with neither deep exploration of characters , no analysis of environment or circumstances , but massacres without much sense. With "Frightmare" following on "House of Whipcord" , David McGillivray's scriptwriting is undoubtedly having a marked effect on Peter Walker's pictures . Main and support cast provide decent interpretations . Sheila Keith gives a nice acting as the ruthless mom who has the scary habit of going after victims with a drill or knife before devouring them raw , while Rupert Davies is fine as her faithfully hubby .

This gory picture was professionally directed by Peter Walker . He was an expert on Terror movies , though he also made other genres and TV series . As Peter Walter directed the following ones : " House of the long shadows , Home before Midnight , The Comeback , Schizo , House of Mortal Sin, House of Whipcord , Frightmare , Tiffany Jones" . Most his films used to settle for routine or run-of-the-mill storylines, however , nowadays teem with demonic life and made in exploitation style . Peter Waker's "Nightmare" filmmaking is on another level , altogether from " Cool it Carol ¡" or "The Flesh and Blood Show" . Rating : 6/10 . Acceptable and passable though it tends to leave a highly unpleasant aftertaste .

Cynical, depressing .... quite brilliant

[heedarmy · 1 December 2000]

Peter Walker, the director of this notorious British horror film, said that he wanted audiences to leave the cinema feeling angry and frustrated after seeing it. He succeeds.

Unpleasant and cynical though "Frightmare" may be, it is brilliantly made and cleverly written. We move between two worlds, of 70s juvenile delinquency in the heart of London and the chintzy, old-fashioned farmhouse inhabited by Rupert Davies and Sheila Keith. What unites both worlds, shockingly, is violence and murder.

There are other dualities in the film. There is the generation gap, between the elderly couple and their children and the gender gap, for here is a horror film where it is women who are the aggressors and the men are impotent onlookers or helpless victims.

The acting is remarkably good, right down to the bit parts, such as the hapless little man (played by Andrew Sachs of "Fawlty Towers" 'Manuel' fame)who is the first victim, in the film's moody, black-and-white pre-credit sequence. But the real honours are stolen by Sheila Keith, at times pathetic, at times terrifying as Mrs Yates and by Rupert Davies as her defeated, despairing husband.

Parts of the film look a little cheesy and dated but it is still a remarkably powerful work. The music score is a bonus too - in place of the usual screeching brass, Stanley Myers score is subtle, eerie and menacing.

I can't really recommend this film as "fun" viewing and it is light years away from the comforting certainties of Hammer's Gothic tales, where good always conquers evil. But "Frightmare" is that rare beast - a genuinely disturbing and unnerving horror film.

A creepy and entertaining bloodbath

[mwilson1976 · 6/10 · 3 April 2019]

This ghoulishly fun Grand Guignol horror piece from director Pete Walker features a tour-de-force performance by Sheila Keith as Dorothy Yates, committed to an insane asylum for the murder and cannibalism of six people, along with her husband played by Rupert Davies who covered up her crimes. They are released years later whereupon they take up residence at an old farm, and Dorothy, far from cured, starts drawing people there (through classified ads promising Tarot readings) and murdering them with metal pokers, electric drills and pitchforks. Deborah Fairfax is Jackie (Edmund's daughter from a previous marriage) who visits them in the dead of night, bringing packets of offal to try and control her stepmother's still-insatiable lust for flesh, and who has been looking after her half sister Debbie who turns out to be a chip off the old butcher-block herself. Andrew Sachs (Manuel from Fawlty Towers) plays a victim in the movies grim opening sequence. A creepy, entertaining bloodbath, directed completely without pretense by Walker who keeps the plot moving when it it needs moving, and shocking the audience when they need a shock. It has all the usual trappings of an early 70s low budget film (a bit of nudity, motorcycle riding teenagers, gratuitous violence) but Frightmare is still terrifying stuff and one of Walker's best movies. It is also known also known under the titles of Cover Up and Once Upon a Frightmare.

Walker & Keith: a match in heaven

[parkerbcn · 7/10 · 27 April 2021]

Part of the excellent group of horror movies directed by Walker in the 70s, with a mix of exploitation attitudes and B-movie sensibilities, but also with a recognisable personality. It has again one of its best qualities in the presence of the memorable Sheila Keith, that dominates the movie, and it's a sad and gloomy film. It's good to see Walker's filmography being rediscovered in later years, because he is one of the most unique authors of English genre cinema.

Stark and unsettling

[Leofwine_draca · 7/10 · 29 November 2021]

Spoilers ahead! FRIGHTMARE (1974) is another grim and gruelling shocker from British director Pete Walker, perhaps his best-known work. It's a stark slow burner which feels like a family drama or soap at times, but with a particularly dark sub-plot that by the end turns it into the British version of THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE. I feel that the director's slow and mannered approach works well in this one; it's as though the viewer gradually unravels a psychological mystery which begins off extremely subtly and ends up with graphic depictions of horror and cannibalism that bring to mind both DRILLER KILLER and the films of Norman J. Warren. However, the film it's most similar to is THE BEAST IN THE CELLAR, with another kindly elderly couple hiding some very dark secrets in their rural abode. It's extremely well-acted throughout too: inevitably the frightening Sheila Keith is the stand-out here, but Rupert Davies really excels as her protective husband and the younger cast members aren't too shabby either. If you like doses of social drama and realism with your horror, then this one's for you!

Can't say I understand all the like for this.

[poolandrews · 4/10 · 14 February 2012]

Frightmare is set in England & starts in 1957 as Edmund (Rupert Davies) & Dorothy Yates (Sheila Keith) are tried & convicted of cannibalism, they are sentenced to be locked up in an asylum until they are 'cured' & ready to return to society. Fourteen years later & Edmund & Dorothy are living in a small cottage near London, their daughter Jackie (Deborah Fairfax) know's the truth while her younger sister Debbie (Kim Butcher) is unaware of her parents notoriety & culinary tastes. Jackie has kept the family secret hidden from Debbie & she doesn't even know her parents are alive let alone living nearby, Jackie visits her parents & gives her mother raw animal brains to try & keep her happy but Dorothy has a taste for human flesh & is soon luring people to her house in order to kill them & feast on their flesh. Jackie finds out & Dorothy convinces Edmund that she must be silenced as she know's too much...

This British production was produced & directed by Pete Walker & is maybe his best known film, not that Frightmare is particularly well known but it's probably less obscure more widely remembered than his other work. This is the third Pete Walker film I have seen & is about on par with The Flesh and Blood Show (1972) with The House of Whipcord (1973) the better of the three, while Frightmare isn't terrible & has it's moments I can't say I liked it that much. Walker's often used theme of corrupt or ineffectual system, here the rehabilitation & care services are made to look inadequate, look to have been manipulated & their shortcomings are held responsible for the release of a dangerous cannibal as the men in white coats are convinced she is 'cured' & of no further harm to society. It's a fair point, there have been several real life high profile cases of mental patients released from care who went on to carry out senseless murders but what does Pete expect? Maybe we should just lock these people up & throw away the key, maybe we could just execute them for both their's & our own convenience? Sure, Walker highlights the problem but never suggests any answers or thought provoking alternatives. It's because of this that I felt Frightmare was a little empty, sure there's build-up but it goes nowhere & Frightmare never really satisfied me on any level. At just under 90 minutes Frightmare moves along at a fair pace but takes a while to get going & then never really takes off, the horror aspect isn't that impressive neither are the psychological ones involving family, the system, trust & betrayal. There is one weak twist that is never explained, if Jackie didn't tell her just how did Debbie know about her parents?

Filmed in real locations in 70's London this has a certain look & feel that I liked but the film itself isn't so good. The gore is actually quite tame, there's a battered head in a car boot, someone is beaten up, someone is killed with a hot poker off screen, someone is stabbed with a pitchfork while a dead man is seen with a bloody face but generally speaking Frightmare isn't that gory. The film Jackie & Graham are supposed to be seeing is Blow-Out (1973) but while in the cinema the soundtrack heard is from Walker's earlier film House of Whipcord.

Filmed mainly in Haselmere in Surrey here in England. Probably shot on a low budget Frightmare looks quite good actually, it's fairly bright & the production values are decent. The acting is pretty good, Sheila Keith gives a demented performance while Jackie is suitably vulnerable.

Frightmare is one of those films that I didn't love but didn't hate either, it's just there. Sure it will pass 90 odd minutes but there are better ways to spend that 90 minutes. I just feel a bit impartial & unmoved by it, I doubt I will remember much about it in a few days.

Pete Walker's horror masterpiece: As intense now as it ever was...

[cjlines · 9/10 · 13 June 2002]

"Frightmare" is one of those films that sticks in your mind from the moment you first see it which, considering the relative daftness of its basic premise, is some achievement. Rupert Davis and the always-excellent Sheila Keith are both on top form as Edmund and Dorothy Yates, a married couple who, in 1957, are deemed insane in a court of law and sentenced to spend their lives in an asylum until such time as they are deemed "fit to take their place in society". Their offence? Well, it seems Dorothy has been committing acts of "pathological cannibalism" (or to put it simply, she's been killing folk and eating their craniums for a little while now) whilst Edmund, despite not being involved directly, is also labelled mad for not trying to stop her even though he was fully aware of her unusual activities.

Fifteen years down the line and they are both "cured" for all intents and purposes, thus let out and sent off to live in a creepy old farmhouse somewhere in the countryside of South-East England. Possibly not a good idea. Edmund has acquired a job chauffeuring around a local aristrocrat but during those long, lonely days at the farm cottage, it doesn't too long before Mrs Yates is looking for something to occupy her time productively. She takes out an advert in London magazine Time Out offering her services as a tarot reader and before long is visited regularly by lost souls looking for guidance. The bulk of her visitors are utterly lonely individuals, no friends, no lovers, no family to speak of and you're probably already ahead of me if you've guessed that when Dorothy draws the DEATH card, it's a lot more literal than you might expect. Yes, she's back to her old "pathological cannibalism" tricks, killing folk and eating their craniums... Crikey! But to make things even more interesting, Edmund has a daughter from a previous marriage who was old enough at the time of her father being committed to be aware of his circumstances. She now lives in London and is also currently the legal guardian of her younger sister, Edmund and Dorothy's only biological daughter together, who was born the very year her parents were locked away and believes them to be dead. The plot thickens somewhat here but to tell any more would be really spoiling things. Trust me though, it's good stuff.

But, as I say, it sounds like a reasonably standard issue horror premise you might think, but in the hands of Walker and his screen writing partner-in-crime David McGillivray, it becomes something entirely more powerful. As with "House of Whipcord", Walker uses much inspired photography and gifted use of light and locations to create a grimy atmosphere of unpleasantness that gives you the creeps without once employing the standard "creepy" clichés. The scenes in the farmhouse manage to pull off a genuine sense of menace even before anything particularly nasty has happened. By the time the seriously horrible stuff starts, the tension has already reached fever-pitch and you're balanced on the edge of your seat, biting your nails and shrieking like a schoolgirl. The quality of the acting (quite rare for a film of "Frightmare"'s budget) helps too, although none of the actors give a particularly 'conventional' performance. In honesty, I could imagine some of them would be quite bad indeed in the hands of a lesser director but somehow Walker manages to extract a strange, hard-to-explain intensity from even the least 'naturally' talented cast members. Needless to say this means that with someone as strong an actress as Sheila Keith, we're talking a tour-de-force performance! As Dorothy she is quite unforgettable, playing a genuinely very disturbed, horribly lunatic individual without once resorting to hokiness or hamming it up. Instead, aided by the strength of the screenplay, she gives Dorothy a worrying sense of genuine pathos - she honestly believes the people she kills are so lost and lonely they would be better off without life and, on top of that, McGillivray and Walker even provide a legitimate, believable reasoning behind her cannibalism, all too rare in this type of film. When this pathos is coupled with the extremity of her nastiness and complete insanity, it leaves us, by the final reel, with a genuinely very threatening, very unpredictable and seemingly very, very *REAL* terror.

Of course, the final reel is another kettle of fish altogether, worthy of paragraph upon paragraph of analysis - sadly, that would be spoiling things. Let's just say that by the end of the film, there have been so many stones overturned and everyone seems so dysfunctional that, as a viewer, you're thrown into a state of sheer confusion, having no idea how things will end. By the time the final, mortifying frame freezes on the screen and the credits begin to roll, you're left mindblown. It's a depraved and wild plot line so loaded with twisted-up Freudian implications that even Andy Milligan would be proud - in fact, it's very nearly like watching an Andy Milligan movie as shot by Hitchcock at times... which, as anyone who's ever come across Milligan would testify to, is a mightily strange and heady experience indeed... Oh, and, trust me, after watching "Frightmare" you may never be able to hear the sound of a Black and Decker power drill again without a very, very cold shiver running down your spine...

I'm sure I don't need to harp on much more - I consider this an absolute classic of British horror. I think it's a crying shame that Walker is often lumped in with his budgetary peers from the Euro-sleaze market when a film as brilliant as "Frightmare" could quite easily wee from a great height on Hammer's entire 1970's output in the 'outright terror' stakes alone. Intense, intelligent and... invigorating. They *REALLY* do not make horror anywhere near this good any more, more's the pity.

A Very Serious Relapse

[ferbs54 · 7/10 · 18 October 2007]

Opening with a shot of the Battersea power station, a site that the Pink Floyd album cover for "Animals" would make world famous three years later, "Frightmare" (1974) tells the story of quite a strange human animal indeed. She is Dorothy Yates, who, along with her more normal husband Edmund, had been institutionalized in 1957 for crimes that the sentencing judge called "sickening" and "disturbing." Fifteen years later, the Yateses are released, but unfortunately, Dorothy suffers what Edmund can only call "a very serious relapse," one requiring her to go after ever increasing quantities of...let's just call it "brain food." As portrayed by Sheila Keith, Dorothy Yates is surely a candidate for the pantheon of all-time-great cinematic nutjobs, right besides such other wackos as Norman Bates, Hannibal Lecter and Leatherface. Matronly sweet one moment and icily psychotic the next, she surely does make for one mighty creepy and intimidating customer. It is a memorable performance by Ms. Keith, and she is more than ably abetted by Peter Walker's fine direction and by fellow actors Rupert Davies, Deborah Fairfax and (the appropriately named) Kim Butcher, as members of her nuclear family. "Frightmare" features several mildly gory sequences, although most of the violence is either implied or shown as an aftermath. The picture ends on a suitably downbeat note that is completely devoid of sentiment and should manage to shock most viewers. Had this picture been made in America, rather than the U.K., it surely would have resulted in a sequel, and truth to tell, it almost seems a shame that the fascinating story of the Yateses was a one-shot. There have been many films dealing with devoted husbands and man-hungry wives, but never one quite like this! All fans of intelligent horror should, uh, just eat this one up.

There's not much to say really ***SPOILERS***

[Monica4937 · 5/10 · 18 November 2004]

While I feel the storyline was interesting, I didn't like how they jumped around a lot in the film. Perhaps they had to cut out a lot of scenes because of the budget and time? Whatever the excuse I still feel the editing could have been done better. One minute we see Jackie holding out a blood stained jacket asking her sister how it got there and the next we see Jackie sitting down and Graham coming to her with a glass of water because she had just got done crying. I would have very much liked to see Debbie's explanation of how the blood got there but no, they had to skip all of that and have Jackie mention it to Graham. There were a bunch of other jumps in the film as well but I am not going to list all of them.

Also the gore was a big let down, there just wasn't enough! In the one scene where Dorothy drills the woman's head all you see is her crazed eyes and little splatter's of blood. Show us the drill going into the head! Maybe I am being too picky because maybe thats what the director wanted, to scare his audience by not actually showing the drill going into the head just the crazed look in Dorothy's eyes, but I just felt it was lacking. It didn't scare me at all. Overall I gave this film a 5/10. The storyline was good, but the acting was so so and the gore was completely laughable.

One of the greatest exploitation movies of the 1970's

[Libretio · 8/10 · 25 February 2005]

FRIGHTMARE

Aspect ratio: 1.75:1

Sound format: Mono

After serving a lengthy prison sentence for acts of murder and cannibalism, a 'fragile' old lady (Sheila Keith) is released into the care of her husband (Rupert Davies) and they retire to a farmhouse deep in the English countryside. But old habits die hard...

One of the great exploitation titles of all time, FRIGHTMARE (1974) has often been described as the UK's answer to "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" (1974) due to its bleak scenario and uncompromising violence, toplined by elderly murderess 'Dorothy Yates' (Keith), who lures unwary victims to her isolated farmhouse with promises of Tarot readings and stabs them to death with various household implements. Davies' daughter from a previous marriage (Deborah Fairfax) suspects Keith is still insane and enlists the aid of her psychiatrist boyfriend (Paul Greenwood). But Keith and Davies have another daughter (Kim Butcher), conceived just before their incarceration, and she's beginning to show disturbing signs of following in her mother's footsteps...

Having infuriated tabloid hacks with his barely-disguised assault on the Christian Right in HOUSE OF WHIPCORD (1974), director Pete Walker conceived the notion of cannibalism in the Home Counties (!) and commissioned a screenplay from "Whipcord" scribe David McGillivray, a critic-turned-scriptwriter who later became an outspoken opponent of British film censorship (watch for his brief, wordless cameo as a white-coated doctor). The result is one of the best British horror movies of the 1970's. True, the fashions have dated badly and there are too many dialogue exchanges in drab apartments, but the film's antiquated charm is difficult to resist. Most of the film's Grand Guignol horrors unfold within Keith's crumbling farm, an Olde Worlde slaughterhouse far removed from the bright lights of the big city. Walker has described his approach as 'modern Gothique', an unsettling antidote to the safe, predictable (but still enjoyable) Hammer formula, and perfectly suited to an era defined by its social and political turmoil.

Production-wise, the film is competent but unexceptional. The young leads are OK, nothing more, though Butcher is suitably unpleasant as the sociopathic daughter, and there are brief, throwaway cameos from British movie stalwarts Leo Genn (THE WOODEN HORSE) and Gerald Flood (PATTON), both cast purely for marquee value. Veteran character actor Davies is particularly impressive as the distraught husband who is incapable (and ultimately unwilling) to curtail his beloved wife's monstrous cravings. Immensely popular at the time due to his role on British TV as Inspector Maigret, he was singled out for special attention by outraged critics, appalled by his involvement in such 'lowbrow' material, though it wasn't the first time this 'respectable' actor had dabbled in exploitation (see also "Dracula Has Risen from the Grave", "Matthew Hopkins: Witchfinder General", "The Oblong Box", etc.). As it turned out, FRIGHTMARE was Davies' last film - he died in 1976.

But the true star of the show is Sheila Keith, an unpretentious, supremely gifted actress who came late to the film business and stayed just long enough to leave an indelible impression on cult movie fans worldwide. As portrayed here, Dorothy Yates' pathetic frailty conceals a ruthless psychopath, capable of the most horrendous atrocities, and the demonic expression which transforms Keith's face as she stalks her helpless victims is as blood-freezing as anything in the genre. Nowhere is this more evident than in an extraordinary sequence - completely unexpected in a British horror movie at the time - when Keith uses an electric drill to mutilate the head of a corpse which she's hidden in the barn...

NB. The original UK trailer is an exploitation gem which refuses to show more than a few brief moments of footage from the film, claiming the rest of it is too shocking for public exhibition!!

Another anti-establishment low budget picture from Pete Walker.

[tonypeacock-1 · 7/10 · 5 April 2022]

Great low budget British horror/exploitation film from the mid 1970s. The subject being cannibalism (shocking!).

The cast including the main star Sheila Keith put in top drawer performances added to clever film making by other crew members.

Director Pete Walker shocked with all his films in this period. He was rightly renowned for his anti - establishment film making that shocked some of the liberal press and censors of the time.

In this film we see what can happen when mass murderer's are released early. In this case only 15 years after being sentenced to treatment at a mental institution. It brings sad comparisons to real life cases such as the Bulger kilkers and the Moors Murderers pleas for clemency.

The film has aged well and the print I watched was excellent quality unlike The House Of Mortal Sin, Walker's next film.

Watching this gem has made me want to watch other Walker work including Die Screaming Marianne and House of Whipcord.

Ghastly, Ghoulish, Grotty & Gory.

[hitchcockthelegend · 5/10 · 24 October 2013]

Frightmare is directed by Pete Walker who also co-writes the screenplay with David McGillivray. It stars Rupert Davies, Shelia Keith, Deborah Fairfax, Paul Greenwood and Kim Butcher. Music is by Stanley Myers and cinematography by Peter Jessop.

Edmund and Dorothy Yates are freed after fifteen years in an asylum, committed for despicable crimes, but is Dorothy cured? And what of their daughters?

Frightmare is what it is, a British exploitation horror made at a time when it was out to get the best rise out of the audience. As much as Pete Walker's fans don't want to believe it, there is no social comment being made, no hidden agenda or attempts to push the boundaries of British horror in visual or thematic achievements. Walker, a very likable and honest man, even says his films are not for deep cranial pondering, he couldn't believe his luck that he got to throw blood and guts about and got paid for it.

Frightmare is a thinly plotted and written picture that serves only to bask in some shock and awe scenes. The ineptitude of the mental health authorities is given a cursory glance, but really the picture plods from one scene to the next waiting for Dorothy to get busy with her tool kit. It's there, with the wonderfully scary Keith doing her stuff, where Walker excels. Though in today's desensitised age it's more fun than frightening, while there's actually not as much gore on show as you would think. It's all very basic in truth, but Walker achieved his aims back then, and kudos to him for serving up a truly bleak finale. 5/10

Unique British Horror Classic

[lazarillo · 24 November 2004]

This is one those horror movies that is totally unique. It is a cannibal movie, but it humanizes the cannibals more than any other movie I've seen. They're not rampaging monsters like in "Texas Chainsaw" or stereotypical Third World savages like in the later Italian gut munchers--they're the ordinary people living right next door--and this makes them all the more frightening.

The director is Pete Walker, who found an interesting niche in 1970's British horror/exploitation movies between the hedonistic youth of "Swinging London" and the repressive, reactionary forces that were moving in to stop the party. Walker managed to appeal to both audiences with his "House of the Whipcord", a film both startlingly reactionary and irredeemably sleazy. This film, however, is instead a pox on both houses. There are two cannibals here--one is a seemingly kind old matron (Sheila Keith) who lures victims to her isolated country estate with tarot card readings. She is unwittingly accommodated by her weak-willed husband and well-intentioned step-daughter. She represents a truly twisted version of what American conservatives would later call "family values". The other cannibal is equally frightening--an innocent looking adolescent girl (Kim Butcher) flouncing around in a miniskirt or knickers, coyly manipulating both rough motorcycle-riding youths and respectable older men. She represents the free-spirited and cheerfully amoral youth of the era. It is Walkers genius to ultimately put these two monsters in cahoots. The relationship between them turns out to be very twisted and very close indeed.

The movie is very creepy and truly frightening. Its ultimate message is quite bleak. Apparently, Walker was heavily influenced by American film noir when he made this, and this influence is evident in the dark, eerie visuals and bleak, fatalistic tone where the shadow of the past is always casting a pall over the present. This is a genuinely disturbing film, but one I would recommended highly.

Strange domestic drama mixed with a cannibal crone

[Groverdox · 6/10 · 23 May 2021]

Here is an odd one. "Frightmare" is a nasty b-horror offering about a woman who drills into people's skulls and eats their brains, and it boasts one indelibly horrifying image, the perfectly cast oddball actress Sheila Keith dribbling blood while approaching a victim, drill at the ready.

But for most of its length, it's not really like that. It's more of a domestic drama about a woman living with her tearaway half-sister, fifteen years old, who goes around with a biker gang and incites them to beat up any man who displeases her. The elder sibling is seeing a psychiatrist, who may be able to make progress with the girl, or at least would have a chance if this wasn't a shocker.

Stranger still, the movie has barely any exposition. One of the things I disliked about the (still above average) prior Pete Walker flick "The Flesh and Blood Show" was the exposition dump at the end, suddenly filling in all the blanks, many of which I hadn't even noticed. It's like Walker decided to rein in that tendency to the opposite extreme. It's dialogue heavy, mostly in domestic situations, and the psycho killer cannibal plot-line seems to come in as an afterthought.

Disturbing and compelling

[jangu · 7/10 · 7 May 2001]

Some people want to bundle this together with "The Texas chainsaw massacre", but I have no doubt that this is not what Pete Walker had in mind with "Frightmare".

Both films share the themes of families gone bad (in this case REALLY bad) and cannibalism, but the comparison ends there I think. Because TTCM is about some people who are insane and they are not really trying to hide it. The "monster" in this movie knows what she is doing is an abominable act and therefore tries to hide her "little affliction" behind a respectable image of this nice little gray-haired lady.

"Frightmare" is a truly depressing, shocking and disturbing movie, primarily because it manages to make it's goings-on seem a little bit plausible. The performances are natural and unaffected (even though some of the younger actors are a bit stiff - and subsequently were never seen in a movie again), the murders unpleasant (but not as gory as you think they are at a first viewing) and the 70's settings gray and bleak. And the final family confrontation in the attic truly is one of British cinemas most disturbing moments.

At the heart of the movie, and it's greatest strength, is Sheila Keith! Her performance as Dorothy Yates is truly chilling and yet strangely sympathetic. Her savage attacks on her victims and, moments later, her timid knitting-mother style, chilled me to the bone. And without her, "Frightmare" probably would have been more or less forgotten today. The best scenes in this movie are ALL with her, especially those tarot sessions where she displays every facet of her acting skill.

Rupert Davies as her weak and suffering husband is also strong, but more subdued (it couldn't be otherwise). Also worth mentioning is the actress Kim Butcher (sic!) who really tries very hard in her role as a juvenile delinquent with a very, VERY twisted mind.

The movie is shot in a fairly dull and straight-forward way, with two exceptions: the interior scenes in the house of the old couple and the prologue! All these scenes are excellently atmospheric!

You are at the edge of your seat almost during the whole movie because you feel that almost no one is save from the slaughter (and how right you are!). Pete Walker never did anything approaching this level ever again (though he tried hard and had Mrs Keith cast as a murderess two more times). However, be warned, this is not for every taste (no pun intended).

A demented, talky homicidal family drama

[drownsoda90 · 6/10 · 18 March 2018]

A London couple are imprisoned after committing a string of cannibalistic murders in 1957. Years later, they are freed, but the wife is not quite as reformed as one may think. The couple's now-adult daughters, one of whom was raised without them, come to realize their mother's murderous impulses and hunger for flesh are ever-present.

This twisted horror tale is as demented as it is absurd; companions to "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" are inevitable given they were released within weeks of each other, but they share little in common aside from a cannibal subplot; where "Chainsaw" was a venture into a living nightmare, "Frightmare" is more of a macabre family drama with a slasher underpinning; in some ways, it's more of a psycho-family drama than it is a horror film.

This is not to say the film is not grotesque or disturbing-there are some great special effects and shockingly violent murder scenes, one of which entails a hot firepoker that is particularly difficult to stomach (no pun intended). For every few minutes of these primal terror sequences though, there is about fifteen minutes of wordy dialogue that floods the film to the point of weighing down the tension. This is mitigated somewhat by the fact that the performances are quite good; Sheila Keith is appropriately unhinged, while Rupert Davies makes a strangely likable counterpart who covers up her crimes. Deborah Fairfax and Kim Butcher also play the couple's adult daughters very nicely.

Overall, "Frightmare" is a patently demented horror film with a macabre concept and stand-out performances, but is somewhat weighed down by its own loquaciousness and extended family drama hi jinx. Still, there are moments to be had in the film that are truly immediate and disturbing, which make it worth a watch for genre fan, and its downbeat ending packs a punch. 6/10.

Uneventful and boring Film

[Oslo_Jargo · 2/10 · 1 August 2006]

I am startled to see that there are hardly any 'negative' reviews of this routine film, on the advice of the positive reviews I rented the film and was utterly taken aback at how boring and amateurish it looked.

The start looked promising, an eerie promenade at an abandoned carnival, but then it went downhill from there.

Most of the screen time is taken up by inexperienced actors who can't hold a scene together, and the story is tepid and unworthy for a long feature.

Nothing ever really happens and there are no scary moments or plot elements that make us shudder. The 'murders' look fake and are exaggerated to the point of ridiculousness.

I kept waiting for something startling to happen, but it never did, just banter between dull British folk.

Avoid this at all costs.

Visit the farm and you might just buy the farm.

[BA_Harrison · 8/10 · 6 March 2013]

By the 70s, British horror audiences were growing tired of creaky old Gothic horror-bad news for Hammer, whose stock-in-trade was vampires and man-made monsters, but good news for Pete Walker, whose more exploitative brand of horror featured homicidal maniacs that more than satisfied the viewers' blood-lust.

Frightmare (1974) is one such film, a demented tale of a crazy married couple, Edmund and Dorothy Yates (Rupert Davies and Sheila Keith), committed to an asylum for murder and cannibalism, but released fifteen years later, supposedly rehabilitated. Of course, doctors are known to get things wrong from time to time, and dotty Dorothy turns out to be not quite as sane as she had led people to believe.

Dorothy's stepdaughter Jackie (Deborah Fairfax) is convinced that she has matters under control, feeding her stepmother brains bought from a butcher's shop, but she hasn't counted on the involvement of her delinquent 15-year-old half-sister Debbie (the aptly named Kim Butcher), who turns out to be a chop off the old block.

With a drilling, a pitch-forking, a hot poker impalement, and a dead guy with an eye missing from the socket, Frightmare certainly delivers gruesome entertainment by the bucket-load, yet also features stylish direction and some winning performances, particularly from Keith who is genuinely frightening as nutso Dorothy, and jail-bait Butcher, who is equally as scary but also adds a little titillation by prancing around the kitchen in her scanties 7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.

Sheila Keith's greatest moments ...

[parry_na · 6/10 · 18 January 2016]

"It is such fun being night people, isn't it?" Sheila Keith, one of Director Pete Walker's repertory stalwarts, asks at one point. Here, she plays Dorothy Yates, recently released from an asylum after displaying violent cannibalistic preferences, now completely cured. A quick look at the gleam in her eye and it is clear such a prognosis was … optimistic, to say the least.

Sheila Keith has been underrated, despite her numerous appearances in Walker's films, and she is never better than here (at least not in the films I have seen her in thus far), and she is given material she can really, if you will, sink her teeth into. Her long-suffering brother, also committed, is played by Rupert Davies in one of his last films. Edmund Yates is guilty only of covering up his sister's actions. Her brand of insanity attracts a certain loyalty. Imagine if she had other relatives? Of course, she does. The wayward Debbie, whose dewy-eyed innocent look belies her murderous nature, and Jackie, who secretly visits Edmund and Dorothy late night.

This is my favourite of the films directed by Pete Walker so far (I'm not watching them chronologically). It has a central theme that doesn't meander, features well-written parts for all cast members, and every part is very well played. It has the crisp starkness of a low-budget UK thriller and is directed very much in the style of television series at that time. It's really a showcase for Keith's magnificent, towering performance. Yet she's supported by a fine cast (including cameos from Andrew Sachs, Leo Genn and Gerald Flood), and the proceedings are given a pleasingly open-ended climax.

Terrible!

[Shan-12 · 2/10 · 24 December 1998]

This film is utterly vile and should not be watched by anyone. It shouldn't have been made either but there's not much we can do about that now. Ends at a point when things were potentially going to get interesting, given that half a dozen people had disappeared in the same place and you'd think someone would come and look, thereby rumbling the evil fiends

in this film. (Though unfortunately not the director and scriptwriter)

Quite deranged...rather great!

[Coventry · 8/10 · 6 September 2004]

It's 'granny goes gaga' in this genuinely creepy bone-chiller, surprisingly well directed by Peter Walker and penned down by David McGillivray. The power of this 'Frightmare' simply lies in its primitive goal to shock and to disturb the viewer by showing the disastrous fade of poor, innocent victims. *** small spoilers*** The eerie black and white opening sequences introduce us to an elderly couple on trial for a series of savage murders. Dad is pretty much sane and a devoted husband, but mum suffers from cannibalistic characteristics. 15 years later, they're freed from the asylum and declared properly sane. Even though they now live in a quiet farm outside the town and receive many visits from their oldest daughter Jackie, mommy (Dorothy Yates) resumes her old disgusting habits by enticing lonely people to the farm with the offer or reading their futures in cards. Things get even more complex when Jackie's psychiatrist boyfriend digs up matters from the past and the couple's youngest daughter Debbie seems to have inherited mom's relentless sense of cruelty and taste for blood. *** end spoilers *** There's very few background in the story and not even a proper attempt to analyze the psychological elements the plot handles about. Frightmare wants to shock you, and from that viewpoint, it's a very successful package of eeriness. Multiple scenes are loaded with tension and leave you with a very uncanny aftertaste in your stomach. There's quite a lot of offensive gore in the film and the mind-blowing climax skyrocketed the cult-value of this film, back in the early seventies. If you're not too easily petrified, I certainly recommend checking this film out.

A Creepy British Classic!

[meddlecore · 6/10 · 27 October 2014]

Despite displaying what would today be considered very mediocre special effects, Frightmare is a creepy British classic.

Imagine you are a single father and you fall madly in love with a woman, who then becomes your wife. Only to find out that she is a serial killing cannibal who uses tarot readings to lure in unsuspecting victims. You love her so much, though, that when the sh*t hits the fan...you get yourself institutionalized in an asylum just to be closer to her...leaving your daughters as wards of the state.

Fast forward 15 years later: your wife is deemed cured and fit for release (a credit to the ego of psychiatrists...toward which the film takes an oppositional slant). Together- even though your insanity was questioned from the beginning- you are sent back out into the world, to live freely.

The release of such a couple, has led to an identity crisis for their daughters, who now find themselves leading dual realities. Jackie is left attempting to con her still cannibalistic mother into eating hog brain, so that she can prevent any other innocent people from being murdered. While subsequently trying to hide the very existence of their parents from her sister Debbie- who was born in the asylum and raised in a convent style orphanage by a group of nuns. However Debbie has some secrets of her own...

It becomes evidently clear early on- after she instigates a bar fight, before killing and dismembering the target victim- that Debbie has, at the very least, inherited the murder gene from her violently disturbed mother.

Her mother, on the other hand, is an incredibly manipulative psychopath who simply cannot stop murdering and eating people. And she has a particular taste for brain.

She has gotten her entire family trapped within her world. They are all either trying to cover-up for her, or actively helping her kill.

Too bad for the young and upcoming, local, psychiatrist- who thinks he's the wondermaker that can work out all their mental issues. As you might suspect, things don't go so well for him. Inevitably leading to the conclusion of the film.

In my opinion, The Yates Family are, alongside the Texas Chainsaw Massacre crew and those backwoods hicks from Deliverance, among the creepiest horror families that have ever plagued the cinematic screen. While the special effects are quite budget- with a general lack of gore- the film more than makes up for this with it's tension and collection of creepy characters driven by dubious motives. I really enjoyed this disturbing classic. Recommended.

6.5 out of 10

My sister is a bit of an extrovert

[nogodnomasters · 1/10 · 22 January 2018]

Edmund (Rupert Davies) and Dorothy (Sheila Keith) have been released from a mental institution, their home for 18 years. They are cured from killing and eating people...almost. The oldest daughter Jackie (Deborah Fairfax ) cares for her 15 year old half-sister Debbie (Kim Butcher) who is a bit wild like her mother. Jackie tells Debbie their parents are dead, while she sneaks out at night to visit them with an offering from the butcher store.

The film was on the slow side. The gore factor is minimal. Some blood splatter and an occasional red meat special effect. I was bored for most of the film.

Parental Guide: No f-bombs, sex, or nudity. Fair DVD transfer.