Sign In / Sign Up

Fear in the Night

Fear in the Night
Release date: 1972-07-09
Rating: 5.8
Votes: 59
Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Horror
It took Peggy Heller a long time to recover from the trauma of a brutal physical assault, suffered in her youth. When she married Robert, he provided her with the love and reassurance she craved for and the two settled down in a pretty house in the grounds of the public school where Robert was a master. But the headmaster of the school is not what he seems and Peggy is convinced he means to harm her - is her fear a figment of her tortured imagination or are there forces at work that intend to manipulate her anxieties with fatal consequences?

Reviews

John Chard

John Chard

Brainstorm! One of Hammer Films' ventures into the psychological horror realm, Fear in the Night is more fun than frightening. Plot has Judy Geeson as a young woman recovering from a nervous breakdown who moves with her husband to a boys' school. Once there she appears to be once again terrorized by a man with an artificial arm, but nobody believes her. Peter Cushing, Ralph Bates and Joan Collins also star, in what has to be a candidate for weakest of the Hammer psychological series of films. Things are not helped by it coming off as a cheap knock off of Hammer's own superlative "Taste of Fear 1961", a picture that firmly delivered on its promise. Fear in the Night starts off promisingly, with a genuinely scary set-up, and once Geeson and Bates arrive at the boys school it's ripe for chills and suggestion. Unfortunately, the premise of Geeson being menaced in what is essentially a four character piece quickly wears thin - with Cushing badly under used in the process. Atmosphere is fine, director and co-writer Jimmy Sangster always had a good eye and ear for uneasy dread. While the small cast give it a good whirl to make the modest intentions shine brighter. But ultimately it's only a diversion piece that homages better films of its type instead of making its own mark. 5/10

Movie Recommendation

  • The Revenge of Frankenstein
    The Revenge of Frankenstein
    1958-06-13
    Rescued from the guillotine by his devoted dwarf Fritz, the Baron relocates to Carlsbruck, where he continues his gruesome experiments.
    More...
  • The Valley of Gwangi
    The Valley of Gwangi
    1969-07-24
    A turn of the century wild west show struggling to make a living in Mexico comes into the possession of a tiny prehistoric horse. This leads to an expedition to the Forbidden Valley where they discover living dinosaurs. They capture one and take it back to be put on display, leading to inevitable mayhem.
    More...
  • C.H.U.D.
    C.H.U.D.
    1984-08-31
    A rash of bizarre murders in New York City seems to point to a group of grotesquely deformed vagrants living in the sewers. A courageous policeman, a photojournalist and his girlfriend, and a nutty bum, who seems to know a lot about the creatures, band together to try and determine what the creatures are and how to stop them.
    More...
  • Night of the Lepus
    Night of the Lepus
    1972-10-04
    Rancher Cole Hillman is fed up of rabbits plaguing his fields. Zoologist Roy Bennett conducts an experiment to curb their population, but it gives rise to giant rabbits that terrorise the town.
    More...
  • Vampire Circus
    Vampire Circus
    1972-04-30
    After a spate of murders, the villagers of Schtettel kill the depraved perpetrator, Count Mitterhouse. Fifteen years later the Circus of Nights appeared in the plague-ridden village and its performers include Mitterhouse's mistress, children and cousins. They have come to Schtettel to fulfil the Count's last words, an evil, vicious curse of death and destruction on those who participated in his impaling. The children of Schtettel become the targets for a brutal and devastating revenge as the Vampire Circus rehearses for its most deadly performance.
    More...
  • Blood from the Mummy's Tomb
    Blood from the Mummy's Tomb
    1971-06-16
    Two Egyptologists, Professor Fuchs and Corbeck, are instrumental in unleashing unmitigated horror by bringing back to England the mummified body of Tara, the Egyptian Queen of Darkness. Fuchs’s daughter becomes involved in a series of macabre and terrifying incidents, powerless against the forces of darkness, directed by Corbeck, that are taking possession of her body and soul to fulfill the ancient prophesy that Queen Tara will be resurrected to continue her reign of unspeakable evil.
    More...
  • Lust for a Vampire
    Lust for a Vampire
    1971-01-17
    In 1830, the Karnstein heirs use the blood of an innocent to bring forth the evil that is the beautiful Mircalla - or as she was in 1710, Carmilla. The nearby Finishing School offers rich pickings not only in in the blood of nubile young ladies but also with the headmaster who is desperate to become Mircalla's disciple, and the equally besotted and even more foolish author Richard Lestrange.
    More...
  • Demons of the Mind
    Demons of the Mind
    1972-11-05
    A physician discovers that two children are being kept virtually imprisoned in their house by their father. He investigates, and discovers a web of sex, incest and satanic possession.
    More...
  • Dr. Jekyll & Sister Hyde
    Dr. Jekyll & Sister Hyde
    1971-10-17
    In foggy London Dr Jekyll experiments on newly deceased women determined to discover an elixir for immortal life. Success enables his spectacular transformation into the beautiful but psychotic Sister Hyde who stalks the dark alleys of Whitechapel for young, innocent, female victims, ensuring continuation of the bloodstained research. With each transformation Sister Hyde becomes the more dominant personality, determined to eventually suppress the frail, ineffectual Dr Jekyll forever.
    More...
  • The Abominable Snowman
    The Abominable Snowman
    1957-08-26
    A kindly English botanist and a gruff American promoter lead an expedition to the Himalayas in search of the legendary Yeti.
    More...
  • Brawl in Cell Block 99
    Brawl in Cell Block 99
    2017-09-23
    After working as a drug courier and getting into a brutal shootout with police, a former boxer finds himself at the mercy of his enemies as they force him to instigate violent acts that turn the prison he resides in into a battleground.
    More...
  • Horns
    Horns
    2013-09-06
    In the aftermath of his girlfriend's mysterious death, a young man awakens to strange horns sprouting from his temples.
    More...
  • The Meg
    The Meg
    2018-08-09
    A deep sea submersible pilot revisits his past fears in the Mariana Trench, and accidentally unleashes the seventy foot ancestor of the Great White Shark believed to be extinct.
    More...
  • PK
    PK
    2014-12-18
    A stranger in the city asks questions no one has asked before. Known only by his initials, the man's innocent questions and childlike curiosity take him on a journey of love, laughter and letting go.
    More...
  • Ex Machina
    Ex Machina
    2015-01-21
    Caleb, a coder at the world's largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week at a private mountain retreat belonging to Nathan, the reclusive CEO of the company. But when Caleb arrives at the remote location he finds that he will have to participate in a strange and fascinating experiment in which he must interact with the world's first true artificial intelligence, housed in the body of a beautiful robot girl.
    More...
  • Shutter Island
    Shutter Island
    2010-02-14
    World War II soldier-turned-U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by troubling visions and a mysterious doctor.
    More...
  • Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion
    Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion
    1970-10-16
    Rome, Italy. After committing a heinous crime, a senior police officer exposes evidence incriminating him because his moral commitment prevents him from circumventing the law and the social order it protects.
    More...
  • Titanic
    Titanic
    1997-11-18
    101-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater tells the story of her life aboard the Titanic, 84 years later. A young Rose boards the ship with her mother and fiancé. Meanwhile, Jack Dawson and Fabrizio De Rossi win third-class tickets aboard the ship. Rose tells the whole story from Titanic's departure through to its death—on its first and last voyage—on April 15, 1912.
    More...
  • Oppenheimer
    Oppenheimer
    2023-07-19
    The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer's role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.
    More...
  • Back to the Future
    Back to the Future
    1985-07-03
    Eighties teenager Marty McFly is accidentally sent back in time to 1955, inadvertently disrupting his parents' first meeting and attracting his mother's romantic interest. Marty must repair the damage to history by rekindling his parents' romance and - with the help of his eccentric inventor friend Doc Brown - return to 1985.
    More...

Similar Movies