Although the story of this film is fictitious, the events depicted involving psychic phenomena are not only very much within the bounds of possibility but could well be true.
Tom Corbett, Clairvoyant and Psychic Consultant to European Royalty
The BFI recently screened this film as part of the series
celebrating Martin Scorsese’s favourite British films not directed by Michael
Powell (of course) and it fully justifies the director’s favour on a number of
levels and it makes me wonder why I haven’t watched it before. If you want an
engaging haunted house mystery that maintains its edge without resorting to
gore and predictable jump scares then this is it. The performances of the four
leads are what creates the tension and John Hough directs his players and
atmosphere very well aided by an uncanny score from electronica pioneer Delia
Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson.
The premise is grand and simple with wealthy old man
Rudolph Deutsch (the great Roland Culver) calling scientist Dr. Lionel Barrett
(Clive Revill) to his fabulous country house (take a bow Blenheim Palace) to
task him with proving the existence or otherwise of an afterlife. Barrett is a
sceptic of course but this is why he gets the big bucks, to put the Deutch’s
mind at rest either way, by staying a week at the incredibly haunted Belasco
“Hell” House. Emeric Belasco was a reputed sadist and free-range pervert who is
believed to have committed multiple murders after one excessively sordid orgy
of evil. Any relation to the Great Mage Alistair Crowley and Boleskine House,
the Scottish mansion where he attempted to summon the 12 Kings and Dukes of
Hell, is purely co-incidental.
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| Pamela Franklin |
The House’s horrific reputation is well earned with a
previous scientific survey resulting in disaster with multiple fatalities and
only one survivor Benjamin Franklin Fischer (Roddy McDowall – hurrah!!) who
barely kept his sanity. Fischer is a “physical” psychic around whom
supernatural phenomena is expressed through smashing household objects. He is
joined by Florence Tanner (Pamela Franklin) whose gift is more cerebral and
allows her to commune with the spirits of "surviving personalities"
which to Dr Barrett are nothing more than residual electromagnetic energies. He
ain’t afraid of no ghosts.
Now, if all this sounds unpromising you have to have the cast who can not only say all of this with a straight face but also truly believe it and this is where the film utterly delivers… The three aforementioned, together with Gayle Hunnicutt as Barrett’s wife Ann, respect the story which is the only way to truly frighten an audience about supernatural possibilities by simply acting natural. Well, that and things going bump in the night but Hough’s touch is rather more delicate than many directing for Hammer, Amicus or Tigon at this time.
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| Clive Revill |
From the opening quote from one Tom Corbett – an actual
clairvoyant who probably did consult at least one royal family - onwards, the
film adopts a “scientific” approach to the subject and with a course of events
mapped out over individual days much like experiments that have taken place in
these “haunted” locations. It’s very forensic approach to the narrative,
allowing the building of an evidence-base for the unsettling events that
unfold.
The four assemble at the house on Monday 20th December, ghosts clearly love Christmas, with the Barretts driven over in Deutsch’s Daimler with his assistant (Peter Bowles) whilst Benjamin grimly walks from a train station and Florence floats past a church at a Dutch angle… Hough films his characters close up and often from below all of which creates an atmosphere of claustrophobic dread. As they approach the house there’s a wide angled shot before a close-up of Florence looking up the forbidding granite grey as the others, still in focus, approach the door. We’re already in the minds of these characters and Pamela Franklin is the ace in the pack, expressing intense sensitivity and innocence – her Florence is wide open to the possibilities ahead and if they are malevolent we know she will be hit hard.
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| Roddy McDowall |
After dinner at 8.46pm, Florence begins to sense
something and later in her room she not only feels the same presence who she
believes is the son of Belasco, but her bed clothes are inexplicably rolled
back. The next day Professor Barrett duly wires her up in an attempt to measure
the energies causing these phenomena. It’s an impressive sequence that has the
audience grasping at the possibility that we are still in the rational world.
Hough’s camera is fixed on Franklin and, indeed on the legs she reveals wearing
a leotard – the male gaze or a hint at the reasons she is the first to be
“contacted”. Ectoplasm shoots from her fingers and even as the Professor notes
this into his recording of the events we know things will get out of hand.
Later on, glasses are smashed as they eat dinner and during the night Ann comes under some kind of demonic sexual possession during which she attempts to seduce Benjamin. Her husband’s natural response is to bring in bigger machines in an attempt to drain the unnatural energies and cleans the building… but as the psychic assaults get fiercer will science win out or will they find the depth of the hell in the house?
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| Gayle Hunnicutt |
Dusty verdict: As Roger Ebert said in his positive review at the time, this is far from the usual haunted house story and it allows for its characters to gradually get the measure of their situation as it, day-by-day, begins to reveal itself to them. Everything is explained but only in ways that leave the possibility of a rational scientific escape route… maybe.
The script was by Richard Matheson, adapted from his original book but with more graphic sexual scenes left mostly to our imagination – apart from one gratuitous scene with Ms Franklin. The score from Derbyshire and Hodgson combines electronica with some traditional instrumentation and is sadly not available separately although the film is on Blu-ray now.
Talking of music, I finally got to place the quote from Orbital's I Don't Know You People - from the Middle of Nowhere album – when a spirit possessing Florence calls out about their intrusion. Clearly a generation and more have been struck by the film and its influence is still felt… in fact, I’ve just felt a chill down my spine. Wait, what is that?!
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| Looks harmless enough... |
