ShangLuda Admirable film.

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Tayyab Torres Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Coventry It surely doesn't happen very often that I'm giving a Hammer movie a rating of only 5 out of 10 or less, especially not when it's starring the almighty Peter Cushing, but "Fear in the Night" was a disappointment. And for some strange inexplicable reason I know it was going to be a disappointment, otherwise I would have seen it long time ago already. Horror and thriller movies from the legendary Hammer Studios are practically all favorites of mine, but instinctively I always postponed watching "Fear in the Night" in spite of its terrific ensemble cast and the presence of multi- talented writer/director Jimmy Sangster. The plot of this film is obviously a rehash of the French classic "Les Diaboliques" as well as of Hammer's very own 1961 sleeper hit "Taste of Fear". The problem with imitations of "Les Diaboliques" is that there are so many of them that the scenarios have become entirely unsurprising and fairly predictable straight from the beginning. Beautiful but mentally unstable 22-year-old London girl Peggy Heller follows her brand new husband Robert to the remote countryside where he works as a caretaker in a boarding school for boys. During her last night in London, as well as during one of her first nights at the school, poor pretty Peggy brutally gets assaulted by a man with an artificial wooden arm. The only other people on the school's premises are the creepy but authoritarian headmaster Michael Carmichael (Cushing) and his frigid wife Molly, who relentlessly blasts cute little bunny rabbits to pieces with a shotgun. During her brief stay, Peggy finds out about the macabre school history as well as a disturbing thing or two about her marriage. The unfolding of the plot is quite dull and mechanical, and far too many sequences are overlong and irrelevant. The denouement is too calculable because there are only four protagonists and two of them are behaving extremely suspicious. Besides, I have yet to see the first film in which Ralph Bates doesn't depict a character that is hypocrite or deceitful. The scenes building up towards the moments of attack are atmospheric enough, with eerie prowling camera movements and menacing sound effects. The unseen assailant, with his wooden arm could come straight out of an Italian giallo scenario and also the background story of Cushing's character and his beloved prep school is more intriguing than the actual plot. Still, this isn't a noteworthy Hammer highlight.

Edgar Soberon Torchia I found Arthur Grant's lighting the principal annoying element of this motion picture. While Jack Asher photographed almost all of Hammer Film classics, Grant was usually in charge of the less ambitious projects of the company. By the end of the 1960s he contributed to little gems like "The Reptile" and "Plague of the Zombies", but even these were much brighter than the average horror film and --in cases as "Frankenstein Created Women" and this production-- the lighting was more akin to a television drama or sitcom, having too much light on sets of dark tales, making the images (and the tales) look flat. Then the almost absence of surprise and subtlety in the dosage of information, does not help the fact that the story is not very original, and that you have seen it many times before, and a couple of times with more flair. Judy Geeson, Ralph Bates, Joan Collins and Peter Cushing do quite well, considering they are dealing with stereotypes (frightened girl, suspicious husband, bitchy headmaster's wife, and mean crippled headmaster, respectively) and that they were under the direction of Jimmy Sangster, who was foremost a very good scriptwriter. But do not expect too much.

Jonathon Dabell Fear In The Night is a late entry in Hammer's sub-genre of contemporary psychological thrillers. While most commonly remembered for its Gothic horrors, the studio frequently tried its hand at other stuff (historical swashbucklers, prehistoric adventures, TV comedy spin-offs, sci-fi, etc.) Their modern-based thrillers include such movies as Taste Of Fear, The Maniac, Nightmare, Crescendo and Straight On Till Morning. Fear In The Night marks the final time Hammer regular Jimmy Sangster directed a film for the studio, and he brings a reasonably intriguing sense of mystery to the proceedings. It's a very low-key, low-budget affair – almost along the lines of a filmed stage play – and when you've seen it once it's not a film that encourages repeat viewings (without the fun of anticipating the twist in the tail, there's not much else to it).Recovering from a nervous breakdown, pretty but vulnerable Peggy (Judy Geeson) marries a charming school teacher, Robert Heller (Ralph Bates). She plans to move into a house with Robert inside the grounds of the well-to-do public school where he works. However, shortly before the move, Peggy is assaulted by a mysterious assailant. She blacks out during the attack, but before she faints she manages to pull off the attacker's false arm. Later, a still-jittery Peggy arrives at her new home at the school. Here she meets the Headmaster's wife, Molly Carmichael (Joan Collins), an abrupt and bitchy type who instantly makes Peggy feel less than welcome. She also meets the Headmaster, Michael Carmichael (Peter Cushing). Michael demonstrates some downright eccentric behaviour, such as teaching in empty classrooms and playing tape recordings of pupils' voices… but none of that is as disturbing to Peggy as the realisation that Michael has a false arm….The four main characters are quite nicely played overall. Geeson is surrounded by some pretty heavyweight talent but she rises to the role very well; Bates creates an interesting characterisation in a rare contemporary role; Collins (an actress I usually really dislike) is particularly memorable as the film's super-bitch; and ever-reliable Cushing only gets around ten minutes of screen time but makes every second of it count in his pivotal guest cameo. The story unfolds slowly – sometimes too slowly? – but generates intrigue on the whole. There's a nicely controlled atmosphere thanks to the secluded deserted-school locale, and Sangster clearly relishes punctuating the story with various red herrings and open-ended exchanges of dialogue. The twist, when it comes, is rather clever. As noted earlier, though, the twist also provides the film with its main appeal… so once the audience is "in" on the film's secret there aren't many reasons to watch it again. Overall, Fear In The Night is a competently made but undistinguished suspenser in the 'Diabolique' mould.

jamesraeburn2003 A young woman called Peggy (Judy Geeson) has just recovered from a breakdown and is looking to start a fresh. She has just married the perfect husband in the form of the young schoolmaster, Robert Heller (Ralph Bates), who teaches at a private school in the English countryside. Settling down with Mr Right and living in the country has been Peggy's lifelong dream, but it isn't long before the dream starts to become a nightmare. An unknown assailant tries to strangle her twice within a couple of days and the only clue to her attacker's identity is that he has an artificial arm that falls off during the struggle before she passes out. Due to her medical background her husband will not believe her. Meanwhile, Peggy discovers that the school is not all that it seems to be. The wealthy but eccentric headmaster, Michael Carmichael (Peter Cushing), plays recordings of lessons to empty classrooms and there does not appear to be one pupil in the building even though it is the middle of term time. In addition, Carmichael apart from keeping up the role of head teacher to non-existent pupils also has an artificial arm, which leads Peggy to suspect that he is her mysterious attacker. Peggy narrowly avoids being shot by Carmichael's beautiful but cold-hearted wife, Molly (Joan Collins), who was out shooting rabbits. Molly it seems resents Peggy being there judging by her manner towards her. It looks as if Peggy's suspicions about the headmaster are well founded because one night when she's alone in the cottage, he sneaks in and Peggy fires a hunting rifle at him in panic. But the bullets seem to have little or no effect and he gets to his feet and chases a terrified Peggy into the dormitory in the school building where she attempts to shoot him again. But still he manages to get to his feet and the sheer terror of it all makes Peggy faint clean away. The next morning, Robert returns home to find his wife in a state of shock and unable to explain why there are blood patches on the dormitory floor and in their living room. He also sees that both cartridges in the hunting rifle have been fired but of the headmaster there is no sign! Why did Carmichael keep up the role of headmaster to a seemingly deserted school? And if Peggy did kill him or fatally wound him the night before, why is there no trace of his body? Is Peggy genuinely insane or has it all been deliberately engineered as part of a clever and ruthless murder plot to set her up as the perfect frame?Fear In The Night harks back to the kind of psycho-thrillers or "mini Hitchcocks" as they were called that Hammer was producing nearly a decade earlier. Jimmy Sangster and Michael Syson's screenplay follows the familiar plot line of a fragile young woman being systematically driven out of her mind to be the perfect frame up for a murder leaving the guilty party to go free. Anybody who has seen at least one of Hammer's earlier efforts in this genre such as Taste Of Fear or Hysteria will more than likely feel a sense of deja-vu as they are watching this one. Indeed I did but at the same time I felt that it was far from being the worst of Hammer's later efforts. It was made during the company's waning period when they were struggling to compete with a changing market and getting finance from major studios was no longer easy either. Jimmy Sangster who was a veteran writer and producer for the company turned to direction for three of their later films, The Horror Of Frankenstein, Lust For A Vampire and finally Fear In The Night. Here he does perhaps his best directing job even though his own script seems repetitive and a little tired. The plot twists all fit neatly together and the explanation of the events that have taken place at the end proves to be a rational one without the usual plot holes or lapses in logic that have been the downfall of these kind of movies in the past. Performances are excellent throughout with Cushing on top form as the eccentric and sinister headmaster whilst Bates is good as the seemingly perfect husband. Geeson is suitably nervy and fragile as his tormented wife and Joan Collins offers a strong performance as Cushing's cold hearted and selfish wife. On a sadder note, Fear In The Night was veteran Hammer cameraman Arthur Grant's last picture for the company and here like in many of his other films for the company, he succeeded in getting the right atmosphere out of the attractive rural locations. He died the same year that the movie was released.