Smartorhypo
Highly Overrated But Still Good
Hadrina
The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
Teddie Blake
The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
Keira Brennan
The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.
Lurkerbunny
... not to mention before political correctness too. This could never be made today because now we know rape is about power, not sex. But in this film, it's all about sex, sex, sex. It's the original schoolgirl fetish film, a precursor to those Japanese tentacle films, except without tentacles.If you've read the summary, you'd know some pervert is raping schoolgirls in the woods. And killing some too. Why one girl goes through the woods directly after the first rape I dunno. Anyway it's a big mystery, and every guy is a suspect. This film has a lot of alternate titles, mostly dealing with Satan because the schoolteacher who saw the perpetrator said he "looked like Satan". Lesley Anne-Down (or however you spell it) is the lovely and barely legal (17 at the time) first victim.Okay, you've read this far, you know there's a spoiler warning, you must really wanna know something. Like who did it. It was Anthony Ainley's character. Yup. The old Master himself is the evil rapist. Who's really surprised, huh? Now excuse me, I think I'll go hop a TARDIS back to 1971 and stand in the woods while wearing a schoolgirl outfit. Aww yeah.
FieCrier
I saw Saturn Productions Inc.'s video of this release, retitled The Creepers (the title doesn't make much sense).It starts with young women leaving a school in uniforms of white shirts a short pinks skirts. One of them takes a shortcut through the woods, where she is chased and then raped underneath overhead electrical lines by someone we do not see. There are several shots from the stalker's point of view.The woman is hospitalized, still ambulatory but mute and largely unresponsive. A doctor tries to nurse her back. A couple months later, another girl tries cutting through the woods, and she is chased, raped, and killed. A group of girls and an art teacher drive into the woods to look for her. They get stuck in the mud, and when the teacher looks out the back window, she catches a glimpse of someone in the red taillights. She then finds the body of the dead woman.The teacher thinks the man she caught a glimpse of looked like the devil! She paints a picture of how she saw him. She works with the police to try to identify the man. Meanwhile, the first victim is becoming more responsive, but is still mute. A plan is concocted to flush out the killer...This was an OK movie. It was hurt by the music. The action scenes all use the same piece of music, which is so inappropriate it almost makes those scenes comical, which is just wrong. While the version I saw was probably cut, I can't imagine what would have led to this movie getting an NC-17 rating. Perhaps the assaults were more graphic; little is shown of them on the video I watched.After the movie on the video, there's a listing of Saturn Productions' videos, showing the boxcovers for this one and: Circle of Fear, Castle of the Walking Dead AKA Schlangengrube und das Pendel, Die (1967), Demon of the Lake AKA Creature from Black Lake (1976), Night of Horrors (1978), Sinner's Blood (1969), Blade of the Ripper AKA Strano vizio della Signora Wardh, Lo (1970), The Devil Walks at Midnight AKA Plus longue nuit du diable, La (1971), Christmas Evil AKA You Better Watch Out (1980). Several of these are little seen today! Curiously, the illustrated cover for Blade of the Ripper is the same used for the VHS for it still available from another distributor, Alpha. I'm not sure what movie Circle of Fear is; the cover shows a few women standing around a pentagram inside a circle chalked on a floor.
biggee
The film is typical of its time, with the lighting, camera work and fashion giving a clear indication of 1969 to 1971 British cinema.It is not scary, but there is reasonable suspense and enjoyment.My main reason for commenting is has anyone else noticed the very strong similarities with the brilliant (but sadly never shown) "I start counting"?There is the same fashion, the similar colour technique which is surprising given this is Eastman and "I start" is De Luxe, an emphasis on short skirts, an unknown serial assailant who is revealed at the end but throughout most of the film the viewers attention is diverted to other suspects. There is also the woods where the events take place; the atmosphere in the woodland scenes is very similar. Finally, there is a young and good looking central character in both, Lesley-Anne Down and Jenny AgutterWatch the film if you enjoy late 60's, early 70's Britain and a bit of suspense.
Brian Washington
I haven't seen this film in years, but from what I remember of it, it was a pretty good movie. The only thing that I think might be a little politically incorrect is the fact that the a few of the girls are pretty much seen as teases, especially in the scene in which the headmistress' husband fondles one of the girls as she stands on top of a stool. This scene is a little disturbing, especially when you consider the film was made in 1971. No wonder this film was mainly shown very late at night when the kiddies were asleep.