''Frightmare'' (also known as ''Cover Up'' and ''Once Upon a Frightmare'') is a 1974 British horror

slasher film A slasher film is a genre of horror films involving a killer stalking and murdering a group of people, usually by use of bladed or sharp tools like knife, chainsaw, scalpel, etc. Although the term "slasher" may occasionally be used informally as a ...

directed and produced by Pete Walker, written by David McGillivray and starring

Rupert Davies Rupert Davies FRSA (22 May 191622 November 1976) was a British actor. He is best remembered for playing the title role in the BBC's 1960s television adaptation of ''Maigret'', based on Georges Simenon's novels. Life and career Military serv ...

and

Sheila Keith Sheila Keith (9 June 1920 – 14 October 2004) was a British character actress, active in theatre, films and TV. She was born to Scottish parents in London while they were visiting the city and brought up in Aberdeen, Scotland. Longing to act, ...

. The story focuses around Dorothy and Edmund Yates, who have recently been released from a

mental asylum The lunatic asylum (or insane asylum) was an early precursor of the modern psychiatric hospital. The fall of the lunatic asylum and its eventual replacement by modern psychiatric hospitals explains the rise of organized, institutional psychiatry ...

, and is one of Pete Walker's most notable films.

Plot

Dorothy Yates lives with her husband Edmund in an isolated farmhouse in Surrey. They have just been released from a mental institution to which they were committed in 1957 after it was found Dorothy was a cannibal who killed and partially ate at least six people. Jackie, Edmund's daughter by previous marriage, lives in London but secretly visits her dad and stepmum at night to bring her parcels containing animal brain, thereby implicitly feigning to commit murders for her so as to contain Dorothy's murderous urges. Now, it seems as if Dorothy has had a severe relapse. She secretly lures lonely young people to her home, promising tea and a tarot card reading, only with the sessions ending with a violent murder and "feast". At the same time, Jackie tries to control her 15-year-old half-sister Debbie, Dorothy's actual daughter that she and Edmund had shortly before being committed to the asylum. Debbie has been recently thrown out of the orphanage. She now stays with Jackie and rides with her boyfriend Alec, head of a violent biker gang. Debbie incites Alec to start a fight with a barman in one of London's hip nightclubs because he denied her liquor due to her being underage. When they get thrown out, the bike gang later ambush and assault the barman with a chain but leave when spotted. Debbie, however, decides to stay behind and hides the body in the trunk of a car before the police arrive. When Jackie berates Debbie for coming home late, they have a severe argument in which Debbie in turn asks where Jackie goes at night. It is later revealed that her cannibalism can be understood as an attempt to cope with a childhood trauma when she found out that she had eaten parts of her pet rabbit that her parents had cooked and served as dinner. Although her husband Edmund was convicted, it is later revealed that he only faked his dementia in order to remain with his wife. He is a truly devoted husband who loves his wife dearly and does not take part in the actual acts of murder in 1957 and in the present, only helping in covering them up. When Jackie discovers Debbie's bloodied jacket and finds out from her that she was involved in the barman's murder, she and her boyfriend Graham, an investigative psychiatrist who has in the meantime himself found out about Jackie's family history, lead the police to the body in the trunk, which is missing an eye - a wound that could not have been inflicted with a chain and is reminiscent of the wounds inflicted by Dorothy on her victims. As it is thus revealed, Debbie and Dorothy have been secretly meeting without Jackie's knowledge, and Debbie has apparently taken on her mum's pathological urges herself. Meanwhile, Debbie escapes with Alec to the farmhouse, where Dorothy kills Alec. Jackie suggests that Graham call on her stepmum, and he goes there alone to talk to Dorothy, with Jackie following shortly after. When Graham arrives, Debbie reveals his identity to Dorothy, who kills him. When Jackie arrives, she encounters her dad alone, who tells her they feel Debbie belongs more to them than she. She starts looking for Graham and finds Dorothy and Debbie with his body in the attic. As Dorothy and Debbie circle in on her, Edmund, who has followed her there, blocks the door. As Jackie cries for his help, the film closes with a freeze frame of Edmund restraining his urges to come to her aid and looking in dismay at his daughter's imminent demise with a voice-over of what the judge had said to him and Dorothy when they were sentenced to the mental institution in court.

Cast

as Edmund Yates *

as Dorothy Yates * Deborah Fairfax as Jackie Yates *

Paul Greenwood Paul Greenwood (born 2 August 1943) is a British film, television and theatre actor. He is best known for his role as PC Michael "Rosie" Penrose in the short-lived sitcom ''The Growing Pains of PC Penrose'' and its successor '' Rosie'', and as ...

as Graham Heller *

Kim Butcher Kim or KIM may refer to: Names * Kim (given name) * Kim (surname) ** Kim (Korean surname) *** Kim family (disambiguation), several dynasties **** Kim family (North Korea), the rulers of North Korea since Kim Il-sung in 1948 ** Kim, Vietnamese fo ...

as Debbie Yates *

Leo Genn Leopold John Genn (9 August 190526 January 1978) was an English actor and barrister. Distinguished by his relaxed charm and smooth, "black velvet" voice, he had a lengthy career in theatre, film, television, and radio; often playing aristocr ...

as Dr. Lytell *

Gerald Flood Gerald Robert Flood (21 April 1927 – 12 April 1989) was a British actor of stage and television. Early life Flood was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, but lived for most of his life in Farnham, Surrey, where he regularly appeared on stage at ...

as Matthew Laurence * Fiona Curzon as Merle *

Jon Yule Jon is a shortened form of the common given name Jonathan, derived from "YHWH has given", and an alternate spelling of John, derived from "YHWH has pardoned".Trisha Mortimer as Lillian *

Pamela Fairbrother Pamela may refer to: *''Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded'', a novel written by Samuel Richardson in 1740 *Pamela (name), a given name and, rarely, a surname *Pamela Spence, a Turkish pop-rock singer. Known as her stage name "Pamela" * MSC ''Pamela'', ...

as Delia * Edward Kalinski as Alec Marini *

Victor Winding Victor Winding (30 January 1929 – 9 October 2014) was a British actor born in Lambeth, London. He appeared in "The Faceless Ones", a '' Doctor Who'' serial broadcast from April to May 1967 starring Patrick Troughton in which he played the ...

as Detective Inspector * Anthony Hennessey as Detective Sergeant *

Noel Johnson Noel Frank Johnson (28 December 1916 – 1 October 1999) was an English actor. He was the voice of special agent Dick Barton on BBC Radio and Dan Dare on Radio Luxembourg. Life Johnson was born 28 December 1916 in Birmingham, England and at ...

as The Judge *

Michael Sharvell-Martin Michael Sharvell-Martin (2 February 1944 – 28 October 2010) was a popular British television and stage actor whose career spanned more than three decades. He was a familiar character actor on British television screens, guest-starring in sever ...

as Douglas Metchick * Tommy Wright as Nightclub Manager *

Andrew Sachs Andreas Siegfried Sachs (7 April 1930 – 23 November 2016), known professionally as Andrew Sachs, was a German-born British actor and writer. He made his name on British television and found his greatest fame for his portrayal of the comical Sp ...

as Barry Nichols * Nicholas John as Peter * Jack Dagmar as Old Man

Production

Filming locations

The film was shot on location in

Shepherd's Bush Shepherd's Bush is a district of West London, England, within the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham west of Charing Cross, and identified as a major metropolitan centre in the London Plan. Although primarily residential in character, i ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

and in Haslemere, Surrey.

Music

The music was composed and conducted by

Stanley Myers Stanley Myers (6 October 19309 November 1993) was an English composer and conductor, who scored over sixty films and television series, working closely with filmmakers Nicolas Roeg, Jerzy Skolimowski and Volker Schlöndorff. He is best known fo ...

Release

Critical response

Time Out Time-out, Time Out, or timeout may refer to: Time * Time-out (sport), in various sports, a break in play, called by a team * Television timeout, a break in sporting action so that a commercial break may be taken * Timeout (computing), an enginee ...

wrote at the time of the film's release, "it is far better written and acted than you might expect, and Walker's direction is on another level altogether from ''

Cool It Carol! ''Cool it Carol!'' is a 1970 British sex comedy-drama film directed and produced by Pete Walker, starring Robin Askwith and Janet Lynn. It was released in the US as ''Dirtiest Girl I Ever Met''. Plot The cautionary tale of Joe and Carol, a co ...

'' or ''

The Flesh and Blood Show ''The Flesh and Blood Show'' is a 1972 British slasher film directed and produced by Pete Walker, and starring Ray Brooks, Jenny Hanley, and Luan Peters. It follows a group of actors being stalked and murdered by an unseen assailant while rehe ...

''. The problem is that there is absolutely no exposition or analysis, no flexibility about the theme; still contained within a basic formula, it tends to leave a highly unpleasant aftertaste"; while

Allmovie AllMovie (previously All Movie Guide) is an online database with information about films, television programs, and screen actors. , AllMovie.com and the AllMovie consumer brand are owned by RhythmOne. History AllMovie was founded by popular-cult ...

wrote "''Frightmare'' is a potent little chiller that is worth a look to horror fans in search of suitably grim fare from the 1970's and a worthy testament to Pete Walker's distinctive genre skills"; and

DVD Talk DVD Talk is a home video news and review website launched in 1999 by Geoffrey Kleinman. History Kleinman founded the site in January 1999 in Beaverton, Oregon. Besides news and reviews, it features information on hidden DVD features known as ...

wrote, "one of Peter Walker's best known and best remembered films, ''Frightmare'' gave the director the chance to really capitalize on his working relationship with oddball actress

and give her a starring role that fit her unusual looks and acting style perfectly. At the same time, ''Frightmare'' also stands as an excellent example of the type of darkly humorous and semi-satirical horror movies that Walker excelled in, the kind that weren't afraid to rub the viewers nose in the dirt a little bit or to give the establishment the big middle finger salute." The critic,

Philip French Philip Neville French Order of the British Empire, OBE (28 August 1933 – 27 October 2015) was an English film critic and radio producer. French began his career in journalism in the late 1950s, before eventually becoming a BBC Radio prod ...

, writing in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'', stated that "''Frightmare'' is a nasty, foolish and morally repellent British Horror film, without an ounce of humour though with a plethora of hilarious lines... What

he film He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...

lacks in imagination it attempts to make up in gore. The consistently stolid pace is mitigated by the varied nature by which the cannibal dispatches her victims... The picture argues strongly that no patient should ever be released from an asylum for the criminally insane; this presumably is its bizarre claim to redeeming social value."

References

External links

* * {{Pete Walker 1974 films 1974 horror films 1974 independent films 1970s slasher films British horror films British slasher films British independent films Films directed by Pete Walker Films set in Surrey Films scored by Stanley Myers Films about cannibalism British serial killer films British exploitation films 1970s English-language films 1970s British films