Crucible of Horror

source: Crucible of Horror

Might be spoilers This film focuses on the odd relationship of an affluent British family that could easily be described as "dysfunctional." The mother (Mitchell) locks herself away in the house to work on her paintings, the father is obsessed with order and cleanliness, the son is his old man's lap dog and the daughter (Gurney) is the oddest of the lot. After father (Michael Gough) is informed that his daughter has robbed the country club's golf shop, he beats her with a bit of wood. The following morning mother and daughter decide to rid themselves of the domineering patriarch. The women refuse to attend the family's weekend retreat at their isolated cottage so father heads out by himself for some hunting and relaxation while his son Rupert (SImon Gough) stays in the city to hobnob with clients. The cottage becomes a sanctuary for daddy who hunts birds and listens to classical music without the intrusion of his irrational female family members. But the two dames show up unexpectedly with intentions of poisoning dear old dad and setting up the scene as a suicide. But the women's plans were not well thought out and when they return to the cottage, believing that they killed the old man, they find his bed neatly made and his corpse missing. STORY: $$$$$ (Olaf Poolay writes a very strong story with exceptional characterization. This is a real horror movie that focuses on the inner terror rather than an outwardly psycho with a hatchet. What begins as a sort of a feminist's dream--women standing up for themselves and demanding personal freedom--evolves into a statement on female irrationality. The two women yearn for the shackles of the man's world to be removed but once they are taken off, they have no direction--no purpose. I can see how women could hate this movie). ACTING: $$$$ (The acting is top notch all around. Michael Gough is brilliant as the father. He expertly plays this demanding character and the viewer gets the sense that he has started a family not because he wanted a wife and children but because that is what is expected of respectable men. He is far more content alone at his cottage and even busying himself at work than he is around his wife and daughter, who are a constant source of annoyance. Yvonne Mitchell is equally strong as the passive mother who devises the plan to murder Michael Gough but needs the support of her daughter to carry it off. Sharon Gurney showed quite a bit of talent as the eccentric daughter but her career never took off. She does a stellar job with the tortured, misunderstood young lady role). NUDITY: $$ (Very little here. There are a few breast flashes from Sharon Gurney but nothing gratuitous. She is shown skinny-dipping in a creek when Michael Gough catches her and beats her. It is his goal to make certain that she doesn't fall for some "shaggy-haired lay-about.")

The sadistic and domineering Walter Eastwood (splendidly played to the nasty and menacing hilt by Michael Gough) rules over his household with the proverbial iron fist; his browbeaten painter wife Edith (a fine performance by Yvonne Mitchell) and rebellious teenage daughter Jane (an excellent portrayal by Sharon Mitchell of "Raw Meat" fame) join forces to kill him. However, disposing of Walter's body proves to be easier said than done. Director Viktors Ritelis, working from an intriguing script by Olaf Pooley, does an expert job of creating and maintaining a profoundly grim, depressing, and claustrophobic atmosphere and firmly grounds the downbeat premise in a thoroughly plausible drab workaday reality. Moreover, Pooley's screenplay offers a compelling and provocative feminist subtext on how men do their best to control women through both physical and psychological torture and the impossibility of abused women to successfully overthrow the cruel male hierarchy. The startling moments of sudden brutal violent and underlying themes of incest and spousal abuse give this picture an extra potent emotional sting. The sturdy acting from the able cast rates as a real substantial plus: Gough excels in a tailer-made hateful bastard role, Mitchell and Gurney are both deeply sympathetic, and Simon Gough impresses as Walter's smarmy suck-up son Rupert who's completely indifferent to the women's pain and suffering. The cinematography by John Hotchkis boasts several neat stylistic flourishes. While this movie does suffer a bit from slow pacing, an overdone score, and a rather frustrating ambiguous ending, it nonetheless manages to be genuinely chilling and hence is worth a watch for fans of out of the ordinary fright fare.

**SPOILERS** A bit uneven but still interesting family drama with an overly strict father Walter Eastwood, Michael Gough, who's constant mistreatment of the women of his household his wife and daughter Edith and Jane, Yavnnoe Mitchell and Sharon Gurney, leads them to a plan and later make an attempt on his life. We see earlier in the film how Walter's daughter drives him batty both with her screwing around and her kleptomania. Jane stealing of money from the local Golf Club has the club's manager Gregson, David Butler, show up at the Eastwood residence asking Walter for the money that she took. Gregson also seemed to have something going with the 16 year-old Jane that had nothing to do with putting a golf ball. We later see that Jane also has something going on with local grease monkey Benjy, Nicholas Jones, who also has the hots for her but only from a distance. Later Walter, after Jane swore that she didn't steal the club's money, finds the stolen money in Jane's wig he gives her the beating of her life. Even though we never see Walter abuse his wife Edith physically he does treat her as if she's a bit mad. Which we later find out that she is. Later Edith and Jane concoct a plan to murder Walter when he goes out to his country cottage hunting that weekend. The "plan" doesn't go off well but in the end the two do in the overly drunk, which they made sure that he was, Walter. Leaving his body to be found later in bed dead from an apparent heart-attack. But later as the two murderesses don't get any call from the people that Walter was to meet hunting it's obvious that something went wrong in their hair-brained scheme. The ending is a bit hard to take but overall the movie "The Corpes" is much better then you would have expected it to be because of the top notch acting by all involved in it, even the dog Sam did a good job of "acting". There were a number of really good dream-like sequences in the movie involving Edith that showed just who mentally unstable she was. There's also a flashback where we see Walter, again, brutally beat Jane in a lake with her almost *. Walter himself seemed to have this "Mister Clean" faddish where he would vigorously wash his hands every time he touched something or someone he felt had germs or dirt on it, or them. Walter's son Rupert, Simon Gough, was the only one in the family that he didn't abuse since he felt that he lived up to the very high standards that he set for his family members. Rupert was a combination insurance salesman and stock broker.

This had all the ingredients to be a classic film, but ultimately doesn't quite completely hit the mark. The story revolves around the daughter and wife of a dictatorial and cruel man who concoct a seemingly clever method of killing him - making it look like suicide. After quite a muddled start, the film picks up pace once we witness the uncomfortably violent beating by Walter (played by Michael Gough) on his demure and beautiful teenage daughter Jane (Sharon Gurney). Jane and her mother Edith decide enough is enough, and hatch their plan - but could it be that Walter is already one step ahead of them? My favorite era for British horrors is the early 70s, and this film certainly delivers with its tense atmosphere, quirky direction and colorful dream sequences. The music is good too, and helps to really punctuate the action. There's some good countryside locations, and the bonus of Michael Gough in a memorable role - seeing him immediately brought back memories of his role as the creepy butler in the first Hammer Dracula movie more than ten years earlier. But the film ultimately belongs to Sharon Gurney, who gives an amazingly understated and moving performance as the troubled victim Jane. Besides being a beautiful 'English Rose', she has a wonderful screen-presence and charm, and as a viewer you desperately want her to triumph and find some happiness and peace away from her father. The film builds well to a tense and unexpected climax - but ultimately the viewer is left feeling rather short-changed by an inexplicable and abstruse final scene - one which left me completely befuddled! But, this aside, it is still a very enjoyable film for lovers of this genre, and it's a pity it doesn't seem to be more highly regarded than it maybe is.

AKA Crucible of Horror, this movie is a psychological thriller about a sadistic husband and father who plays cruel mental and physical games with his family. When the mother and daughter (Sharon Gurney) have finally decided that they've had enough, they turn the tables on this brutal bully and give him a taste of his own medicine. For tight, merciless tension and venom, this bloodless movie is uncommonly effective and engrossing. Sharon Gurney is also engrossingly naked, however briefly. It is one of those films that would be enjoyed by those who grew up on VHS cassettes, but younger views who do not have low budget experience will likely find it tedious.

This is kind of a remake of Diaboliques. It involves a strict, and in some respects monstrous, man terrorizing two of the women in his life. They resolve to kill him and do, but his body disappears, and then they start getting some clues suggesting he is still alive. Even some details from Diabolique are repeated here. For example, the man (Gough) makes a fuss about his wife having to eat all her dinner, and the women drive home at one point with his body in a large container. Unlike Diaboliques, this is not set at a boarding school, but in a family's home. The home is largely that of a wealthy family, though there are a few odd rooms where the walls are covered with soot, and the things kept in the room are in a jumble. The two women are not the man's wife and mistress, but rather his wife and daughter. Apart from a scene where he squeezes a bicycle seat his daughter had been riding, there's not much of a suggestion of incest. The man is strict, and seems to possibly be obsessive compulsive (there are a number of scenes of vigorous hand-washing). However, he beats his daughter with what looks like a cane or a very stiff riding crop after she is caught having stolen fifty Pounds (this is a British film). There are a number of fairly odd camera angles, though nothing particularly inventive. There is some peculiar editing, some shots that last only a few frames, or some such shots repeating things we've seen already. There are some scenes where there are superimpositions, and also some negative or solarization effects. They are all applied in ways that to my mind were simply awkward and not artistic. The ending differs from Diaboliques and the other remakes of that film. It is not particularly satisfying.

This spooky little chiller has zero budget and lots of effect. The ever-dependable Michael Gough puts in a thoroughly nasty turn as a tyrannical husband who enjoys whipping his daughter and subjecting his family to a reign of terror. The atmosphere at the dinner table in this nightmarish family is palpable; and I'm sure far too close to home for some viewers. Yet another forgotten gem of British cinema, this is a highly effective little film which has the powerful ability to scare if you watch it alone at night with the lights out (like I did). An atmosphere is built up thick with growing dread as the film progresses, and when Gough is murdered, it reaches breaking point. The build-up makes all the shock scenes all the more frightening when they do occur, even if they are rather clichéd some of the time (yes, it's the branch crashing through window scare again!). What it may lack in budget and special effects this film more than makes up with ambition. A tight script keeps things moving along nicely and roots the film firmly in reality, but it's the acting which really makes this film stand out. Apart from Gough's awesome performance, Yvonne Mitchell is a picture of grief and despair, while Sharon Gurney gives a multi-layered character to her Jane. It's a very slow-moving film, but worth it, as when the ghostly things start to happen, they're in the league of things like THE HAUNTING OF JULIA: small, seemingly insignificant things happen, yet they're absolutely terrifying (I especially liked the bit where characters are ringing a house only to realise they unplugged the phone while they were there). The twist ending is pretty disturbing too; I urge all fans of more psychological-orientated horror to track this film down as it's definitely worth it.

The key-word in this movie is atmosphere. The scenario is not the most original I know, the girl that plays the daughter sucks, but the photography and the music add a lot to this movie. I can't say I was any scared when I saw it on TV, yet I couldn't help but love this simple and naive little thriller, just because it was such. 6

With a plot that's heavily derivative of LES DIABOLIQUES (1954), this is one of the oddest British horror films of its time. In itself, it's watchable but not especially rewarding; there are, however, good performances from Michael Gough (playing a despicable tyrant, naturally) and lovely Sharon Gurney (in her film debut as his long-suffering daughter). Still, its sporadic outburst of technique - rapid-fire flashbacks and dream sequences shown in negative - often doesn't work and the twist ending, practically negating everything that has gone on before, is baffling to say the least!