And Soon the Darkness (Robert Fuest, UK, 1970)

A good weekend option for some weekend thrills on the road. We associate road movies with cars or horses, but cycling across the French countryside is another option that, on the surface, sounds like a slow, idyllic adventure with no great action. That is not the experience of the two heroines of And Soon the Darkness, a low-key thriller that packs quite a punch. Nottingham nurses Jane (Pamela Franklin, who I loved in Hell House and watched this movie as the next movie to check out in her filmography) and Cathy (Michelle Dotrice) ride in their bicycles in rural France and come across a mysterious, handsome man wearing sunglasses (Sandor Éles). Cathy is interested in him, while Jane wants to continue with her trip. The adventurous Cathy remains behind, while the more cautious Jane continues, only to lose track of her friend and come across some strange people who make her feel really uneasy, especially when she finds out that this particular area has a dark history involving young female tourists.

The sense of dread and paranoia will become familiar to any person who has travelled to places that are unknown to them, especially where there is a lot of wooded areas where anything can happen, if one strays far off the road. When one takes into account the number of crimes against travelling women in the world today, then the fears of And Soon the Darkness become even more tangible. Shot in a very classical manner by Robert Fuest, the shocking moments are more jarring because of the contrast with this style, and while one might expect (I certainly did) that the movie will have slow parts, its handling of the minimalist story was effective. And Franklin is so real in every moment of fright and anxiety, holding the screen on her own for a long time, making us feel even more dread for whatever is around the corner. A good choice to watch on late summer/early autumn afternoons.

Eye of the Devil (J. Lee Thompson, UK, 1966)

I saw the trailer for "Eye of the Devil" on TMC many years ago and I was caught by how fetching Sharon Tate looked in it. Seeing that it also starred Donald Pleasance, I knew that I had to watched it. Many years passed and I watched "The Fearless Vampire Killers" way before I finally got around to watching "Eye of the Devil".

It's an interesting picture because it has that very moody, very clear-looking black-and-white 60s photography that really helps the film overall. It was directed by J. Lee Thompson, one of the more succesful, multi-genre British workman directors. He makes a lot of interesting choices editing-wise that signal that this is an artistic occult-thriller, not a run of the mill Sunday afternoon horror flick to scare the kiddies. For example, the beginning features a quick-fire montage of scenes from future scenes from the movie intersped with a character's journey in the subway. It's like the Mission Impossible movie credits sequences, picquing our interest in what's to come.

Alas, I found the movie to be very half-baked in its plotting, sequences and character development. David Niven and Deborah Kerr are the classy starring couple. He is the wealthy scion of a vineyard-owning family, she is his devoted wife. He is summoned back home by a sinister priest played by Pleasance and tells his wife that it is best if she remained home in Paris (all the characters are French, by the way) with their children. She doesn't listen, so she follows him to his vast, medieval estate, where she's eyed by suspicious peasants, treated with evasive aloofness by her husband's aunt and stalked by the DeCarayn siblings, Odile (Sharon Tate) and Christian (David Hemmings). She is a cool-as-ice witch all dressed in black, he is a super-gifted hunter with bow and arrow who wears a snazzy vest. If they hade me an Avengers movie in 1967, they both would've made awesome Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye versions.

David Niven is good, but his character is so reserved and haunted by an awful secret, so most of the time he actually looks really disinterested in what's going on. Kerr is great, but there's only so much that she can do with the two major emotions she displays: bewilderement and terror. Pleasance looks really creepy, but that's basically all he is given to do..."look" creepy and creepily look at people and things. The DeCaray siblings are the most interesting characters, especially Odile and her haunting, glacial looks and line readings (the camera loves Tate, and the close-up-shots of her face, sometimes zooming in or zooming back, are really bewitching...sorry). But like I said, nothing is really done effectively. Many characters appear and dissappear without much effect in what's going on. The mysterious secret harbored in the estate can be guessed by anyone who's seen a movie about pagan cults before.

From a genre and historical point of view, it's interesting to note that this movie was shot and shelved in 1966 and released in 67, six to five years before "The Wicker Man". This means "Eye of the Devil" was a pioneer in the "pagan cult" sub-genre that was part of the 70's wave of horror films. However, being the first sometimes does mean best, and this is a fine case of that. There's only so much that arthouse editing can do with such a barebones story with little to say about anything. I did enjoy parts of it, and recommend it to fans of any of the cast, which acquit themselves with what they have.