The British picture Fright (1971) is only for horror buffs, if even for them. Peter Collinson (The Italian Job) directed respectably except for the early footage when he tries too hard to be suspenseful. The story itself, by Tudor Gates, is not very good. It takes an eternity, for instance, for the police and others to make the urgent moves to defeat a hair-raising psychopath, mesmerizingly acted by Ian Bannen.
Honor Blackman is in the movie, solid as a worried wife, but even better is the screaming Susan George. Miss George’s Amanda can be an endearingly quiet talker, a persevering soul standing up for herself, a terrified target, etc. She is never false and is sexily lovely to boot. Online critic Peter Hanson observes that “the atmosphere [of Fright] is laden with sex,” and this is chiefly because of George. She and the other actors have nothing to do with the film’s being rather weak.
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