The backdrop to this startling tale is that bastion of English civility: the cricket match. Going to the wicket here are the staff and inmates at a mental asylum. Keeping score is a young intern and Crossley (Alan Bates) a man whose needs are special and very possibly insane. During the course of the game he describes to his fellow scorer how his life have come to such a pass. He claims to have been living amongst Aborigines for eighteen years, and to have learned to kill by shouting. In flashback we are taken to Devon where he takes up with a young rural couple (John Hurt and Susannah York) who are sceptical of this and most of his other scary stories. Unsurprisingly considering that, as narrators go, they don't come much more unreliable than mental patients.Thematically this is similar to The Wicker Man with its challenge to Christian beliefs, though it's much more layered and with less of a narrative thrust. Bates gives a performance of great power, rather then the quietly smouldering persona we are used to. Hurt and York are both excellent, particularly the latter as she succumbs to the madman's charms. Director Jerzy Skilomoski's takes Robert Graves' story at face value and introduces an east European art-film aesthetic into what could have been a Hammer horror. Like much of the best of 'British' - Withnail and I, The Ruling Class, Summer of Love and Skilomoski's own Deep End - The Shout benefits greatly from an outsider's perspective.

There's something profoundly ludicrous about the whole premise of this film, but the story is told in such a straight-faced manner it becomes compelling to the viewer. Aboriginal mysticism finds its way to the English country-side in the form of a spine-shattering shout that can cause all life cease to exist. One mysterious man possesses the knowledge on how to use this shout and forces himself into the lives of an unknowing, loving couple. The main story is a bit oddly placed between a pro- & epilogue set during a sports event at an insane asylum, which does wrap things up nicely. If you have a thing for a strange, offbeat mixture of mystery/horror/thriller/drama, then you can't go wrong with "The Shout". Due to its disquieting triangular relationship of the three leading characters (John Hurt, Susannah York & Alan Bates; yes, you may expect some nudity from all of them), "The Shout" might make up for the better half of a double bill with Norman J. Warren's "Prey" (1978).

A horrifying film by Jerzy Skolimowski. Alan Bates is a mental patient who believes he can kill people with a fearsome shout, something he picked up while living amongst Australian aborigines. He insinuates himself into the lives of sound man John Hurt and his wife Susannah York. What follows is a game of soul-taking, wife-taking and out-and-out bedlam. Bates, never the most stable screen presence, is brilliantly frightening and Hurt and York are excellent. The sexual tension between Bates and York is palpable. Skolimowski infuses the film with an unrelenting sense of dread. It's reminiscent of other classy horror films of the time (THE WICKER MAN, DON'T LOOK NOW). A great, unheralded film from one of the great esoteric directors.

And I really do mean 9/10. This film is a superbly made, wonderfully acted, deliberately under-stated fantasy masterpiece. The sense of conviction, of the truth being portrayed even when the paranormal erupts into the world, is unnerving. Yes, the film as a whole is unapologetically high-brow, full of cultural allusions that many will miss (The dry psychoanalytic cracks, the Francis Bacon-inspired compositions, the inversion of Orpheus), but all that can happily be missed without in any way detracting from the film. For those who love metaphysics, the incredible thrill of the possibility of magic, this should not be missed. (The current DVD release, MOST Regrettably, has been sub-optimally re-mixed. However, for those new to the film, it shouldn't matter too much. For those who have, turn that shout up loud!!!)