The Road Builder – 1971 | 110 mins | Thriller, Drama | Colour

Plot Synopsis

Featuring a screenplay by children’s author Roald Dahl and based on Joy Crowley’s novel Nest in a Falling Tree, The Road Builder has all the ingredients of a macabre classic but it’s sadly letdown by poor direction, an undeveloped story, and a ridiculously evasive ending.

This dark psycho-thriller is set in a gothic Victorian mansion where a middle-aged spinster dutifully takes care of her blind mother. Romance finally enters into selfless Maura Prince’s (Patricia Neal) life in the form of good-looking handyman Billy (Nicholas Clay), who mysteriously arrives at the house on a motorcycle offering to undertake repair work on their dilapidated house. Unbeknown to her, she has taken into her house a psychopathic serial killer who buries his victims under the nearest road construction site. It’s not long before Billy, the victim of a traumatic sexual experience at the hand of gypsies in his childhood, resumes his killing spree. Soon enough, Billy has murdered a woman in a nearby village and the local district nurse, tying up the women up and raping them. The homicidal handyman wins the trust of Maura’s blind mother (Pamela Brown) by lying and reluctantly attending church, but its the sexually frustrated Maura who becomes dangerously involved in a love affair with him. Maura finally discovers her independence and collects all her savings, has a makeover, and persuades Billy to join her in moving to a small croft in the Scottish Highlands. Despite the isolation and self-denial, Maura realizes she cannot curb Billy’s homicidal tendencies.