UK, 1974
86m, 7753 feet, 2364 metres
35mm film, Eastmancolor, 1.37:1 (negative ratio), 1.85:1 (intended ratio)
mono, English
A British horror film directed by Pete Walker.
Plot Summary
Fifteen years after being imprisoned for committing the most horrific crimes of violence, Edmund and Dorothy Yates are freed back into the community. But despite Edmund’s best efforts, Dorothy’s cannibalistic tendencies start to return and she’s soon committing horrendous murders again. Meanwhile, their daughter Debbie and stepdaughter Jackie are starting to be drawn into their strange and violent world and one of both of them may have inherited Dorothy’s taste for human flesh…
Credits
Crew
Directed by: Pete Walker
© MCMLXXIV [1974] Peter Walker (Heritage) Ltd
Production Companies: A Pete Walker production. Produced entirely on location in England by Peter Walker (Heritage) Ltd.
Executive Producer: Tony Tenser
Produced by: Pete Walker
Production Manager: Robert Fennell
Screenplay by: David McGillivray
From an original story by: Pete Walker
1st Ass’t Director: Brian Lawrence
2nd Ass’t Director: James Hamilton
Photographed by: Peter Jessop
Camera Operator: Peter Sinclair
Follow Focus: John Metcalfe
Gaffer: Jim Davis
Edited by: Robert Dearberg
Post Production Supervisor: Matt McCarthy
Eastman Color Processing by: Kay Laboratories Ltd.
Music Composed and Conducted by: Stanley Myers
Sound Recordist: Peter O’Connor
Boom Operator: Robert Edwards
Dubbing Mixer: Tony Anscombe
Recorded at: Cinelingual Sound Studios Ltd.
Make-Up Supervision: George Partleton
Art Direction: Chris Burke
Production Secretary: Leigh Taylor
Cast
Rupert Davies (Edmund Yates)
Sheila Keith (Dorothy Yates)
Deborah Fairfax (Jackie Yates)
Paul Greenwood (Graham Hallett)
Kim Butcher (Debbie Yates)
Fiona Curzon (Merle)
Noel Johnson (the judge)
Jon Yule (Robin)
Michael Sharvell-Martin (barman)
Tricia Mortimer (Lillian)
Tommy Wright (nightclub manager)
Pamela Farbrother (Delia)
Andrew Sachs (Barry Nichols)
Edward Kalinski (Alec)
Sue Shaper (female guest)
Victor Winding (detective inspector)
Nicholas John (Pete)
Leo Genn (Dr Lytell)
Gerald Flood (Matthew Laurence)
Anthony Hennessy (detective sergeant)
Jack Dagmar (old man)
Alternative Titles
Frightmare II – USA (video)
Nero criminale – le belve sono tra noi – Italy
Once Upon a Frightmare
Smak på människokött – Sweden
Terror sin habla – Spain
Press
1974
CinemaTV Today no.10113 (14 December 1974) p.21
This time Pete Walker goes the whole hog with his visual horrors and neglects the manic humour that would have made the grisly bits more palatable. The story line is subordinated to the shock effects; with the characters going in a limbo of incidents without a strong plot to hold them together, there is no build-up of suspense. Sickening rather than joyously sick, it smacks of scaremongering propaganda against the release of mental patients diagnosed as cured. – from a review (The New Films) by Marjorie Bilbow
1975
Monthly Film Bulletin vol.42 no.492 (January 1975) p.8
After Frightmare and House of Whipcord, there can’t be much doubt that the screenwriting of David McGillivray is having a considerable effect on the films of Pete Walker. The basic exploitation angles that have been the mainstay of Walker’s work from Cool It Carol to The Flesh and Blood Show are still evident, but the lightweight, old-fashioned formulas have been replaced by plots and characters of such a fiendish blackness that it is difficult to credit that they are the work of the same director. […] The plot is strictly one-dimensional, with some enormous narrative leaps that enable the forces of good to be obliterated with hardly a squeak (like the hero’s idiotic nocturnal visit to a couple he knows to be homicidal); but thanks to the unfrilly dialogue and some unexpectedly good acting and casting, the film has a distinct power out of all proportion to its subject. […] The film is strikingly shot by Peter Jessop, and in general leaves one wishing that Walker and McGillivray had altered their general format sufficiently to let in a little more air. As it stands, the message seems to be that the mentally ill should be locked up forever, and the implicit attitude towards insanity is thoroughly unpleasant. – from a review by David Pirie
Films and Filming vol.21 no.6 (March 1975) pp.38-39
With Frightmare, Pete Walker has as last come of cinematic age, showing himself the master of his chosen medium and fulfilling the promise of House of Whipcord. This second exercise in horror (and a third is on the way) has few of the gaucheries which were still resident in Whipcord, and although Frightmare‘s overall atmosphere is somewhat less sustained than its predecessor’s, this works even better for the shock moments which are scattered throughout its plot. […] The main reason […] for my enthusiasm for Walker’s horror exercises so far is that he is one of the few directors today who is concerned with shocking, rather than tickling, his audiences. The gutless attempts by Hammer and Amicus have led to a confusion of horror with fantasy, and over the past few years the number of true works in this field have been few and far between. Frightmare‘s shocks are genuinely grisly, and Walker has learnt when, and when not to dwell on the horrenda. Here, rather than in tepid dinner party exchanges, he is in his element. Hokum, then, but with muscle. – from an illustrated review by Derek Elley
2002
Sight & Sound vol.12 no.4 (April 2002) pp.66-67
This grungy 70s British horror pic boasts a truly memorable villain in Sheila Keith’s Mrs Dorothy Yates… His may be an exploitation pic but the production values are better than might be expected – from a DVD review by Geoffrey Macnab
References
Periodicals
- CinemaTV Today no.10113 (14 December 1974) p.21 – review (The New Films by Marjorie Bilbow)
- Fangoria no.254 (June 2006) p.60 – illustrated DVD review (DVD Dungeon by Don Kaye)
- Films and Filming vol.21 no.6 (March 1975) pp.38-39 – illustrated credits, review (by Derek Elley)
- Flesh and Blood no.3 (1994) p.45 – credits, review (1974)
- Monthly Film Bulletin vol.42 no.492 (January 1975) p.8 – credits, synopsis, review (by David Pirie)
- Sight & Sound vol.12 no.4 (April 2002) pp.66-67 – DVD review (Home movies: reviews by Geoffrey Macnab)
- Sight & Sound vol.15 no.4 (April 2005) p.85 – DVD review (Home Movies: The Pete Walker Collection by Ronnie Hackston)
Books
- The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror by Phil Hardy (ed.) pp.291-292
- British Gothic Cinema by Barry Forshaw pp.145, 146-7, 161, 197, 198
- English Gothic: A Century of Horror Cinema by Jonathan Rigby pp.2S7-sS, 2SS, 260, 266, 276, 289, 370, 371
- Film Review 1975-76 by F. Maurice Speed (ed) p.168
- Horror! 333 Films to Scare You to Death by James Marriott & Kim Newman pp.178-179
- Horror and Science Fiction Films II by Donald C. Willis pp.143-144 – credits
- Horrorshows: The A-Z of Horror in Film, TV, Radio and Theatre by Gene Wright p.243 – credits, review
- House of Psychotic Women by Kier-La Janisse pp.187, 299, 390
- The Mammoth Book of Slasher Movies: An A-Z Guide to Over Sixty Years of Blood and Guts by Peter Normanton pp.215-217
- The Pocket Essential Slasher Movies by Mark Whitehead p.80
- Serial Killer Cinema: An Analytical Filmography by Robert Cetti pp.186-187
- Uneasy Dreams: The Golden Age of British Horror Films, 1956-1976 by Gary A. Smith p.110
- X-Cert 2: The British Independent Horror Film 1971-1983 pp.139-145; 282-283
