Taste of Fear – 1961 | 81 mins | Thriller | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Superior Hammer psychodrama that unusually takes its inspiration from George Clouzot’s celebrated chiller Les Diaboliques rather than B-movie horror. Seth Holt’s moody and gripping picture from one of Jimmy Sangster’s better scripts boasts the imaginative camerawork of Douglas Slocombe combined with Eric Boyd-Perkins superlative shock-cut editing to create an unnerving sense of fear. Sangster had reluctantly found himself trapped in gothic horror territory thanks to the success of The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula and The Mummy, and wrote Taste of Fear years earlier in an attempt to break free. Hammer Studios were initially disinterested in the project, so Sangster attempted to produce the film up at another studio. This unfortunately fell through. However, by this time, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho had hit cinema screens around the globe and was breaking box office records, so Hammer quickly revised their outlook on Taste of Fear and quickly put into production.

Written some years earlier by Sangster, At the time of its writing, Penny Appleby (Susan Strasberg), a student crippled in a horse-riding fall, who, during the school break, travels to the French Riviera to visit her father, whom she hasn’t seen for ten years. Unfortunately, when she gets there, she is informed by her new stepmother Jane (Ann Todd) that he is away on business. However, while waiting for his return over the next few days, Penny comes to believe that she is going insane when she sees her father’s corpse in the summer house, and subsequently in her bedroom. Her stepmother and family doctor (Peter Cushing) dismiss Penny’s claim as that of young woman’s fanciful imagination but the family chauffer Robert (Ronald Lewis) suggests somebody may be trying to drive her insane due to her father’s inheritance. Robert believes Penny’s claim, and suggests there are only two places a dead body could be stored – in either the deep freeze or cold waters of the outside swimming pool – and consequently discovers the body of Mr. Appleby deep in the pool. Robert advises that they quickly contact the police.