Movie Review: Fright (1971)

Synopsis: A college student, Amanda, accepts a babysitting job from a new family in town. The parents seem friendly but the mother, Helen, seems a bit elusive whenever Amanda asks questions. Once she is left alone in the house, however, Amanda discovers the truth, the man Helen lives with isn't her real husband. Instead, her real husband and the child's father, Brian, has been institutionalized, has escaped and is now trying to get inside the house.

Who's in it? The movie stars Honor Blackman, Susan George, George Cole, Ian Bannen and Tara Collinson.


Review: I came across Fright while scrolling through movies on Amazon Prime yesterday. While it sounded similar to plenty of other horror movies/thrillers I've seen, I figured I'd give it a try this morning since I had some extra time before needing to head into the office. While I don't think it was the best movie I've seen from this genre, it ended up being OK.

The movie does a decent job building up the dangerousness of Amanda's (George) situation. This includes the way Helen (Blackman) acts around Amanda when she asks questions relating to her job, clearly being careful about what she says. It also included the way the movie went out of its way to show the number of locks on the front door.

The scenes involving Brian (Bannen) are entertaining and intense. For a while, I wondered if maybe Helen was really the bad guy and had him wrongfully locked up but once he was finally introduced, it was clear that wasn't the case. The mentally disturbed Brian proved his ability to be violent early on, but it wasn't a steady amount of violence (like in the movie Halloween) and instead it was the kind of thing where he could be calm and collected one moment then snap at the very next.

The end of the movie was especially suspenseful, with Brian putting everyone from Amanda to his own child (Collinson) in danger. It also included something unexpected, which doesn't happen very often.

My biggest complaint with the movie is it does take a while to get going. Amanda spends a lot of time getting scared by a variety of things that have nothing to do with the plot and even has an opportunity to get in a make out session with her boyfriend (Dennis Waterman) before kicking him out of the house and watching a movie instead. It was a lot of filler for a movie that is only 87 minutes in length, and it would have been nice to see Brian get some more screen time instead.

Final Opinion: I think it would have been better had the actual scary/suspenseful parts had more screen time, but it still turned out to be an entertaining film and I don't regret watching it.

My Grade: B

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