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| From http://www.ukhorrorscene.com/ wp-content/uploads/2013/12/sne1.jpg |
Director: Richard Fleischer
Screenplay: Brian Clemens
Cast: Mia Farrow (as Sarah); Dorothy
Alison (as Betty Rexton); Robin Bailey (as George Rexton); Diane Grayson (as
Sandy Rexton); Brian Rawlinson (as Baxter)
A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #18
See No Evil on paper is a potentially great pot boiler thriller. Sarah
(Farrow) is a young woman who has
lost her eyesight and is learning to cope with her new life with blindness
while staying at her uncle's home in England. A sociopath venture up to the
home and Fleischer does exactly what
one would want from a premise like this. No overbearing music that spoils the moment
or jump scares. Instead there's a slow and lingering sense of dread. Fleischer lets small details - glass on
the kitchen tiles, a wrist chain on the floor - give the sense of something
having gone wrong with the vulnerability of Sarah, having to use her hands to
travel around, leaving the viewer with immediate fear for her. Punctured with a
subplot about an old suitor Steve (Norman
Eshley) trying to rekindle their romance, it actually helps build up the
concern when finally the events that have taken place are shown in a
matter-of-fact way, a camera pan to the left or the frame being pulled back
revealing the horror of what's happened. The perfect way to make a thriller.
Sadly See No Evil while a technical gem for a thriller dwindles in
interest after this. While the presentation is perfect, including its natural
photography for rural English countryside and wasteland, the story doesn't
build up well enough even for a simple pot boiler under ninety minutes. Briefly
there's a concern that it's going to become anti-gypsy in attitude, which does
turn out to just be a plot twist based on the characters' prejudices
thankfully, but it doesn't help that the killer when they're revealed is merely
a McGuffin than someone compelling visually or in performance. (Neither does it
help that, to try to make them evil, they're established at the beginning by
having them come out of a cinema with a double bill including "Rape
Cult" in the matinee or having their feet on the seats in a pub. The later
is just bad manners, and especially in seventies Britain let alone now, you
couldn't get away with a film title like "Rape Cult" in English
cinemas like old American grindhouses could.) The film seems far more
interesting in equestrian content in fact that the thrills at points, obsessed
with horses and riding them even if it leads to an escape by way of one. While
its short length is perfect for a sharp, creepy narrative the plot needed more
meat on its bone to make the ending better.
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| From http://www.ferdyonfilms.com/wp-content/ uploads/2010/10/seenoevil03.jpg |
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