One of the lesser known British horror flicks from the '60s depicts a husband and wife going to a house where mysterious things start happening. A big difference is that this one is set in the US, and Oliver Reed affects a US accent for his character. The movie itself is nothing special, although the end is a bit of a surprise. Carol Lynley is certainly a babe. The version that I saw had the edges cut off, so the opening sequence was confusing.Basically, it's no Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee movie, but it's enjoyable enough for its run time. The British horror flick from 1967 that I recommend, though, is "It!", starring Roddy McDowall as a man who comes into possession of a golem.

This rather slow-moving thriller, inconspicuously based on a Lovecraft story (there's nothing fantastical about it), is surprisingly a lot like the later "Straw Dogs" until it finally gets to the mild "horror" content in the last half hour. Carol Lynley and the notably over-twice-her-age Gig Young are Americans who return to the remote English village where she's inherited a (seemingly) abandoned mill, and where her parents died (mysteriously of course) when she was a child. Her vague childhood fears turn out to be grounded in the reality of a sinister presence still hiding in the "shuttered room" upstairs. But before that manifests itself, she is mostly menaced by all the leering, rapey local louts. Chief among them is Oliver Reed, who as usual in these early roles seems much more vivid than anyone else onscreen, and is so detestably sleazy one really enjoys the scene in which Young (however improbably) beats him senseless. Fitting loosely into the "psycho chiller" category that flourished after "Psycho" and "Baby Jane," this is uneventful for too long, and David Greene's competent direction (commencing the relatively short period where he made big-screen features, before and after long stretches in TV) lacks distinguishing style and atmosphere. Flora Robson is a welcome presence as the aunt who tries to warn our protagonists off, though it's hardly an interesting role for her. Lynley, as usual, is pretty but undistinguished, and Young, as usual, is pleasant in a generic-leading-man way. The "Straw Dogs"-type sexual menace of the wife and humiliation of her husband actually continue--a lot less graphically than Peckinpah allowed, of course--right up until the rather tepid climax in which the secret about the "ghoul" is finally revealed. The film's only real eccentricity is a score that's much closer to jazz (with occasional Indian raga flourishes) than the usual suspense fodder this material would get. That, and perhaps the fact that it takes a while to realize the movie is supposed to be set in New England, when clearly it was shot in (and most of the cast is from) "old" England.Anyway, I waited a long time to catch up with this, and can't say it was really worth the wait. It's not bad--there are certainly cheaper and cheesier psycho-thrillers from the era--but it's not particularly memorable or scary.

There's a schism at the heart of most every aspect of this nonetheless compelling film. It feels like it ought to be a period piece, but it's not. It feels like it ought to be set in England, but it's not (it was filmed there, however, with mostly British actors!) The music is atypical, the lead couple has a nearly thirty-year age difference and most of the horror scenes take place in the daytime. Lynley plays a young lady who has inherited an old mill house on a New England island. She and her recently wed husband Young drive up to the place to see if it would make a suitable summer home. That they are not made to feel welcome is an understatement. The local toughs, led by Reed, try to bang them off the road and Lynley's aunt Robson, who resides in a drafty lighthouse, tells them to leave immediately! They stick it out, but it isn't long before they are tormented by, not only the local hoods, but by some strange, stalking presence within the mill. Eventually, Lynley must confront not only the title locale, but her own past as well. Lynley is pleasant and attractive and does fairly well as a woman in peril. Both her and Young's characters come off as a wee bit dense as a result of the script and direction, which keep making them respond rather benignly to the events around them. Young, who simultaneously seems too old and yet just right as a husband for Lynley, is amiable as well, but is asked to perform some pretty unbelievable martial arts moves. He does have one memorably gritty scene in which he's tied up on a dirt road. Reed is a little old for his role and overacts wildly, though he somehow makes it work. His attempt at an American accent is decidedly more southern than northern, however. Robson, an actress who elevated any project she was in by merely showing up, is appropriately mysterious and spooky. It's just a shame that the makers didn't just go ahead and set it in England, with the couple flying over to claim the inheritance. The efforts to make it seem American do not come off at all. The discordant score is a matter of taste. While some folks welcome the unusualness of it, others find it intrusive and/or inappropriate. In either case, it is loud and prominent! Once a TV staple, which endeared it to a generation of fans, the film then virtually disappeared for many years until recently being released to DVD and being shown on TCM on Halloween of 2008.

"The Shuttered Room" is a severely disappointing entry.**SPOILERS**Receiving an inheritance, Mike, (Gig Young) and his wife Susanna Kelton, (Carol Lynley) return to her home on Dunwich Island after inheriting an old mill on the island. Meeting with the locals, they all warn them away from the mill for fears of an unknown curse from her childhood nightmare that still haunts her. When her Aunt Agatha, (Flora Robson) finds that they're desire to stay there and turn it into a summer-house, she feels it will unleash the curse again, and as they spend more time together, they start to believe in the curse and try whatever they can to get away before it becomes too late.The Good News: This was an incredibly disappointing effort. That it can go so wrong after it's brilliant opening moments is a mystery, but only sporadic moments afterward are any good. The opening here is classic, where a young child is attacked menacingly, then begins to fight off the parents before being dragged away and locked in a strange room, all done through the attacker's POV. It's brutal, shocking and intense, which is a fantastic way to open the film and get some good points going. There's also the fact that it's all pre-credit, so nothing is known of what's happening, making for a better scene. After arriving on the island, they are harassed and tormented by the locals, including a crazy, imaginative, and highly memorable part where one is pulled along behind a truck by a metal chain while standing on a wooden box as he's dragged over the pavement, with their car caught in the dust and flying debris behind them. All of this is done in the opening half of the film, and manages to be it's best part. Though it does play up the haunted-house style of scares nicely, there's a nice and sleazy undertow to the last half and it concludes with a Gothic-standard burning house, all of which are watchable, but can't really compare to the opening.The Bad News: There was a couple of flaws to this. Perhaps the biggest is that the film isn't a haunted house film at all, which is a huge cheat. It's hard to be able to take the hauntings seriously when the revelation occurs, which is such a cheat that it takes the viewer right out of the film, and are forced with a redundant back-story explanation after we all ready know everything anyway that gives way into the twist which, playing off that we already know what's happened, comes as no surprise at all and feels there simply to add to the chase through the house at the end and tie up the loose threads. Also, the focus away from the haunted house story and make it about the psychotic family torturing them through some of the lamest means possible for the rest of the time. The scenes with the brothers out on the highway are just terrible and don't have any sort of thrills or chills to them, and the fight is a major disappointment. These are just plain irritating and don't really do much of anything to help the film. Also rather hurtful is the fact that the film is just deadly dull and boring during the middle segments. While there's a few single, short scenes of the haunting going on, there's just way more scenes in here that are just so boring that it's hard to stay interested in them. They're just so low-key that it's hard to stay all that interested in them at all, as they consist of nothing more than just never-ended scenes of them wandering around the house while she freaks out over nothing and it all seems to just blend together one scene after another of the same thing. It's not exactly the fastest moving film, and combined with the cheat, really knock this one down.The Final Verdict: This was a hugely disappointing effort, mainly because it should've been much better than it really was and becomes a huge missed opportunity. Really only see this one if you're into the type or find some kind of enjoyment from these types, otherwise steer clear of this one.Today's Rating-R: Violence, children in danger, themes of incest and Brief Nudity