Jenny Agutter (Wynne) is 14 going on 15 and has a crush on her elder brother Bryan Marshall (George). He's 20 years older than her and isn't her real brother so it's not as twisted as it sounds. They live in the same family house along with another brother Gregory Phillips (Len), mother Madge Ryan and granddad Billy Russell. Agutter has a flirtatious friend Clare Sutcliffe (Corinne) and together they hang out and talk about boys and love. Agutter shares her fantasy about her brother with her friend and we see how she really cares for him. Alongside her troubled teenage time, there is a serial killer on the prowl and girls and young women are not safe in the area.I liked it. Another British hit for creepiness. Who is the killer? You'll probably change your mind a few times on this one as you try to figure it out. It's filmed on location with a sinister undertone and keeps you watching with various plot twists. We also get Jenny Agutter on a journey to discover what her role in life isn't destined to be and the heartaches she encounters. Who knows, maybe she gets her way once the film finishes?

The opening scenes define the movie as one in which a girl will figure as the central character and the date is the late 60s. The camera takes us on a early morning, voyeuristic tour of a young girl's bedroom -- hair brush, stuffed bunny rabbit, books indicating an interest both in arts and sciences, a crucifix, a school uniform draped very carefully over a chair, alarm clock with flowers on its face. This is a bright, sensible young lady with a playful side. The date is given by the accompanying song, a trite and somewhat wistful but pretty melody called "I Start Counting," sung in an untrained but charming soprano by somebody that sounds like a child. The tune and arrangement are redolent of incense and weed.Then the fourteen-year-old Jenny Agguter leaps out of bed and begins grooming herself for another day at school. She's young, barely recognizable as the more mature older sister in "Walkabout," plumper and execrably cute. I immediately disliked the images as she pulled on her tight gym shorts and slipped into her tiny pleated skirt because there was no way this side of the laws of physics that I would be able to squeeze and bite her supple figure. The bedroom was bad enough.We meet the comfortable working-class family that has adopted her, and the somewhat creepy older brother she adores. (She rolls him a joint as he's driving her to school.) I should mention that Jenny Agguter does as much acting even in this introductory sequence as she seemed to do in the entirety of her remaining career. Never less than magnetic, she was almost always without expression. A decomposing zombie might have generated the same reaction from her as a slice of angel food cake. But this is her first film, and she's nicely animated.The direction by David Greene is perceptive. There is no stylistic razzle dazzle, which must have been a temptation in 1968. But Greene reins himself in. During a school lecture on "sex" there's a hilarious moment when the camera lingers on the elderly priest's frozen smile after one of the girls pipes up with, "What's the Pope got against the pill?" But we soon learn that this is going to be a murder mystery in which Agguter begins to suspect her brother of being a serial killer. He lies often and there's some to do about his trying to ditch a bloodied sweater.But no one should think of this as a drama about discovering a murderer in the family. There's scarcely a police officer in the film, nothing about any evidence they have. It's the story of a naive young girl in the liminal period of adolescence who is given to childish fibs and fantasies, intrigues, jealousies, and shared secrets, a kind of Nancy Drew or maybe Shirley Jackson during a lucid period. She eave drops and hides behind doors and in the backs of vans. She plays pranks on her family, pretending to have been kidnapped. She dreams of handsome men loving her and touching their lips to hers. She asks why a serial killer shouldn't give himself up as long as he can't help himself and there are people who love him.The real climax of the film is not when the murderer is caught -- his identity was obvious early on -- but when Agguter's post-pubescent fantasy life bumps into adult reality and her adored brother turns out not to be a killer but worse, a much-loved older man having a very physical affair with a grown woman, not Agguter herself. It's a touching and somewhat demanding scene and she handles it well.The chronological climax is something of a deescalation. She steps at night into the killer's lair and he rambles on about being laughed at, as if just escaped from the booby hatch. And no matter how fast or how far she runs, the killer's ectoplasm appears to have been transmogrified and she runs (or backs) into him.It's far from being a "hidden gem" but it's professionally managed, it has a fey charm, Jenny Agguter is most fetching, and it's a genuine pleasure to listen to British speech, in which "Where do you think you're going?" If you enjoyed this, you might try "The World of Henry Orient." registers as "Wah d'you think yaw gaying?"

I first saw this movie when I was 14 back in the summer of 1982 and after recently tracking down a copy from a collector, I still found much to enjoy today too. In fact i've been keeping my eye open for a reshowing of this film ever since as we didn't get our first video recorder until late 1982 and so I was unable to record it off air, but sadly so far it hasn't been reshown!Anyway for a start this movie was made in 1969 and is very contemporary too so there's lots of images from that time making this a neat little snap-shot of how Britain used to be, with old houses being cleared to make way for shiny modernist high-rise flats on large estates with shopping precincts and groovy record shops playing Jimi Hendrix tracks (which I love along with all the music played). Then the main star of the show is a teenage Jenny Agutter, clearly showing how talented she is even at such a young age playing the part of the main character Wynne. I now have a daughter myself whose around that age and watching Jenny act and behave is like a mirror image of my own daughter.Others who have left reviews here have made mistakes and it was definitely her older step brother who Wynne thought was the killer and the creepy bus conductor was played by Simon Ward. This movie needs to be commercially released soon as it's a British Classic, Jenny Agutter is awesome and I agree that the theme tune is fantastic too!

For me this movie was quite a find. It appeared late at night on what was normally waste-of-time English-language cable station in Turkey. The syrupy opening theme song nearly made me turn it off, but it caught my attention because it featured underrated British actress Jenny Agutter, most famous for appearing in the superb Australian art-house film "Walkabout" and playing the female love interest in a smattering of more mainstream fare like "Logan's Run" and "American Werewolf in London". Because her international debut "Walkabout" was much more famous for it's incredible cinematography of the Australian outback than it's very understated acting and almost non-existent dialogue, Agutter would become much more renown for her incredible five-minute nude swimming scene than any thespian talent she might have displayed. Her subsequent international roles were thus somewhat limited (for example, even in the PG-rated "Logan's Run" she somehow managed to have a completely gratuitous full-frontal nude scene). Only older British viewers who remember her work as a child actress on obscure BBC television programs would have too much idea of her acting talent.This movie would rectify that immensely if it ever finds a larger audience. Agutter (a couple years younger than she was in "Walkabout")plays a troubled pubescent girl in love with her older foster brother. When she begins to suspect that he is a serial killer terrorizing the local neighborhood she chillingly begins to cover up for him, but the truth turns out to be something quite different.The movie manages to be both a tense thriller and a sensitive coming-of-age flick while deftly avoiding the excesses of either genre. It obviously takes place at a time when London was in full swing (which can be seen in the panty-flashing mini-skirts worn by the characters' slightly more experienced best friend), but the movie also remains somewhat provincial and very British, kind of an early version of a Mike Leigh film. This would make a good double-bill with "Deep End", another superb but sadly forgotten film of 60's era British youth. My only complaint is the music, which aside from a smattering of Jimi Hendrix, is absolutely wretched, especially compare to the music that was coming out of Britain at that time. Nevertheless, I would definitely recommend this one.