Here we see another villainous turn by Oliver Reed, in a film that has everything click.
The Ashby family has been hit with a series of tragedies. First the parents die in a plane crash, followed by the oldest son Anthony committing suicide via the nearby cliffs. The remaining children are placed in the care of their Aunt Harriet (Shelia Burrell), with the vast family fortune being placed in a trust with attorney John Kossett (Maurice Denham).
Simon (Reed), now being the oldest child by default, is a few weeks shy of coming of age and thus getting the bulk of the estate. The problem with this is Simon has pretty much every vice a young man of means can have, from bullying the help to running up debts to everyone in the village. He is especially eyeing his sister Eleanor (Janette Scott), who's been withdrawn ever since Anthony's death. He simply intends to have her committed though, as to better get access to her share of the estate.
And what would convince everyone that she is crazy than seeing Anthony back from the dead? For a while she sees a figure, not a boy, but a full grown man. Taking this as a sign, she jumps from the same cliff her brother jumped from. The man (Alexander Davion) leaps in after her, taking her back home. He also announces himself as Tony. He faked his death, you see. Half the cast believes him, but the other half (Simon especially) doesn't.
There in lies the first twist. While Kossett grills Tony at length, his junior partner Keith (John Bonney) has a talk of a different kind with the stranger. Yes, Tony is a fake, but he was hired by Keith. While all this is going on, someone has been playing a pipe organ in the dilapidated chapel on the Ashby estate with an evilly masked choirboy. Simon isn't taking this news of a long lost brother very well, and he tends to get rather nasty when he doesn't get what he wants...
Many post Psycho films are filled with twists and turns. Paranoiac is one of them, and the story moves along a brisk pace. It even has some elements that would be pretty popular in future slasher films, from the last minute twist to a masked antagonist.
No comments:
Post a Comment