Years after they were imprisoned for cannibalism, housewife Dorothy (Sheila Keith) and her husband Edmund (Rupert Davies) return to their old farm to live in isolation.
Sadly, Dorothy’s compulsion for human flesh remains.
Step-daughter Jackie (Deborah Fairfax) has built an independent life in the city, but returns home periodically with raw meat for her mother.
Will this macabre arrangement remain the status quo?
What an irony that this review will be dropping right in the middle of the UK’s latest political psychodrama.
Pete Walker’s brand of horror is rooted in inverting familiar institutions and archetypes (the justice system, the clergy, and in this case, the family).
Because of its more familiar focus, Frightmare is more viscerally compelling than Walker’s prior film.
A stronger effort than House of Whipcord, Frightmare continues the theme of old sins coming back to prey on the young and the failures of an unknowing establishment.
While I liked Whipcord, it took a while to get going and never felt as brutal as it should have been.
No such chance with Frightmare.
It helps that the focus is so small.
The horrors build from Dorothy’s crimes to the deeper idea of infanticide and feeling excluded by one’s closest family.
There is a timeless quality to Frightmare’s horror.
Sheila Keith, so striking in Whipcord, is given the central role. With her resonant, enunciated speech, Keith underplays the unrepentant cannibal.
I dug the oppressive atmosphere of Whipcord, but there is a sense of building tension to Frightmare that elevates it.
That vein of dark comedy is present - The idea of a mature English housewife chowing down on human brains is hilarious.
There is something darkly funny about her husband’s harried reaction to the revelation of another victim.
As the film heads into the final confrontation, the humour dies away. It isn’t the only thing departing the mortal realm…
Juggling dark humour with a genuine sense of building dread, Frightmare is a terrific horror flick and showcase for the underrated Sheila Keith.
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