Frightmare

Rupert Davies - Edmund Yates
Sheila Keith - Dorothy Yates
Deborah Fairfax - Jackie
Paul Greenwood - Graham
Kim Butcher - Debbie
Fiona Curzon - Merle
Jon Yule - Robin
Trisha Mortimer - Lillian
Pamela Fairbrother - Delia
Edward Kalinski - Alec
Victor Winding - Detective Inspector
Anthony Hennessey - Detective Sergeant

Inspired by the 1972 Andes air crash and shot on location in Haslemere, Surrey, the Pete Walker directed Frightmare is an unrelentingly downbeat cannibal shocker that was a box-office flop when released in the winter of 1974 amid the IRA's Christmas bombing campaign in the London’s West End. The film was clearly way ahead of its time; Abel Ferrara's notorious The Driller Killer lay five years in the future, after all. Sheila Keith is outstanding as the terrifying Dorothy, and Rupert Davies is similarly excellent in a low-key role as her doting husband.

Opening with a black-and-white flashback to February 1957, for a series of cannibal-killings a High Court judge assures Dorothy Yates (Sheila Keith) and her devoted husband Edmund (Rupert Davies) that under Section 65 they will remain in a mental hospital until it is unquestionable that they are fit to take their place back in society. Edmund and Dorothy are eventually released after 15 years in Lansdowne mental asylum and take up residence in a remote farmhouse.

Edmund's daughter Jackie meanwhile lives in a flat in the city, where she tries to take care of her 15-year-old juvenile delinquent sister Debbie (Kim Butcher), visiting her parents only occasionally with parcels of animal offal to assuage her stepmother's cannibalistic cravings. But Jackie's new psychiatrist boyfriend Graham (Paul Greenwood) takes an interest and begins to suspect the truth. The truth is that Dorothy, far from cured, is drawing people to the farmhouse through classified ads in Time Out promising Tarot readings - and continuing her cannibalistic killings. Meanwhile, it becomes apparent that Dorothy’s own daughter, Debbie, has similar cannibalistic inclinations.