Fragment of Fear (1970)

          Appropriate to its title, Fragment of Fear offers glimpses of the powerhouse psychological thriller it never quite becomes—fragments of greatness, as it were. In fact, the movie screams for a remake because a more vivacious interpretation of the same material could be dynamite. Based on a novel by John Bingham and adapted by the British screenwriter Paul Dehn, the movie has a terrific hook: A recovering drug addict tries to expose a conspiracy, so the conspirators exploit his past to destroy his credibility. Had the movie maximized the tension inherent to that strong premise, it could have hit viewers right in the gut. And indeed, some scenes, particularly the finale, provoke the desired level of audience discomfort. However, the movie is burdened with an unnecessarily convoluted narrative and a preference for loaded conversations over physical action. As a result, the picture feels longer than its 94-minute running time even though most of what happens onscreen is intense and nasty.

          David Hemmings stars as Englishman Tim Brett, a former junkie enjoying the success of his best-selling memoir by taking a vacation in Italy with his beloved aunt. When his aunt is murdered in circumstances so mysterious that the Italian police give up their investigation almost immediately, Brett decides to smoke out the killer (or killers). Meanwhile, he manages a rocky relationship with his beautiful fiancée, Juliet (Gayle Hunnicutt), who’s not completely convinced of Tim’s recovery. As Tim sniffs for clues about the murder, he starts getting threats to back off, which only compels him to dig deeper—until the threats start getting directed at Juliet. The ordeal pushes Tim to heavy drinking, and maybe even back to the needle; by the final act, the lines between what’s happening in the real world and what’s happening in Tim’s imagination have blurred.

          Stories predicated on altered mental states are notoriously difficult, because trying to replicate the twists and turns of encroaching madness often damages narrative clarity—and in Fragment of Fear, the problem is exacerbated by talkiness. Since there’s so little in the way of exciting visuals, dull stretches emerge whenever the plot gets murky. It doesn’t help that Hemmings is a cold fish; although he’s credible as a strung-out hothead, his inability to convey warmth inhibits our ability to root for his character. Having said that, it’s probably best to view the movie through the prism of its reserved Britishness; at one point, a policeman sternly announces, “I shall be in danger of losing my temper!” So, in that sense, Fragment of Fear offers an offbeat alternative to the usual hysterics of American drug-themed pictures. (Available through Columbia Screen Classics via WarnerArchive.com)

Fragment of Fear: FUNKY

The Legend of Hell House (1973)

          Although he spent most of the ’70s writing for TV, sci-fi legend Richard Matheson acquitted himself nicely with the big-screen endeavor The Legend of Hell House, a smart blend of “old dark house” hokum and then-modern concepts about using scientific gadgets to record paranormal phenomena. The plot is standard nonsense about a team of experts confined in a haunted house for a set period of time, but that’s inconsequential because as with any proper scary movie, the main appeal is the vibe of the thing.

          The movie kicks off when an eccentric millionaire hires a respected scientist, Lionel Barrett (Clive Revill), to debunk or prove claims that a gloomy British mansion is haunted. The mansion, known as the Belasco House, was the site of assorted grisly murders and torture scenes, so rumor has it the spirits of victims still roam the halls. Barrett agrees to move into Belasco House and run assorted scientific and non-scientific tests, with the aid of his wife, Ann (Gayle Hunnicutt), and two psychics, Ben Fischer (Roddy McDowall) and Florence Tanner (Pamela Franklin).

          Things get weird quickly, as the various investigators start feeling the effects of malevolent spirits, and the film presents a wide variety of phenomena: In addition to the usual bits like characters falling into reveries of otherworldly possession and objects moving seemingly of their own volition, there are kinky scenes of the female characters giving themselves over to unexpected sexual urges apparently triggered by the power of the house. Particularly when the investigators start discovering hard evidence of the horrible things that once happened in the mansion, The Legend of Hell House gets creepier still because it mixes the plausible and the supernatural to create an anything’s-possible mystique.

          Matheson, scripting from his own novel, and director John Hough break the picture into tidy chapters (it’s the sort of movie where every few minutes there’s a hard cut to an establishing shot with “Tuesday” or “Thursday” superimposed onto the frame), and the storytellers leave many creepy events unexplained so the characters (and the audience) get roped into the idea that something freaky is happening.

          McDowall gives an effectively twitchy performance as the most colorful of the paranormal investigators, his jangled nerves surfacing as a sort of tweaked charm, and the picture’s focus on modern trappings makes it feel different from standard haunted-house fare. Of special note among those modern trappings is the disturbing electronic score, created by the wonderfully named “Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson of Electrophon Ltd.” And while it’s true that the plot crumbles under scrutiny—if the house is so damn haunted, leave!—criticizing an enjoyable creepshow for logical gaps seems unsportsmanlike.

The Legend of Hell House: GROOVY