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Near an army base in rural England, several soldiers are killed by a beast
or a beast-like ma, which understandably upsets sisters Joyce (Flora Robson)
& Ellie (Beryl Reid), two lovely old ladies who live nearby ... but not
quite in the way you would expect, as they all refer it to some things that
happened ages ago, & something (or someone) that might have to do with it
seems to be walled up in the cellar (but of course the ladies only talk about
this themselves, being the perfect kindness to everyone else). & really,
the 2 ladies discover that whoever it is had a nice little escape hatch from
the cellar, so the 2 ladies try to close it up again, which is when Joyce
breaks a leg ... & their doctor (David Dodimead) - with the best of
intentions - sends them nurse Sutherland to take care of Joyce ... who almost
catches Ellie when she buries another soldier who whoever-it-is has killed. Eventually
though, when Joyce, the more resolute of the sisters, is given some sedtive
meant for whoever-it-is, & can no longer keep her sister in line, Eliie
comes clean & tells everything aboutt he killings & whoever-it-is to
the police: Ellie's & joyce's father was a proud soldier, but then World
War 1 came, he fell victim to a gas-attack, & he came back, horribly
distorted & suffering from shell shock. The behaviour of the once nice man
became violent towards everyone in his family. Still, he & his wife had
another child, Stephen, in 1921 ... & Stephen was a lvoely boy, but his
father detested him more than everyone else, & could hardly stand being in
the same room with him, already making plans to wall the boy up. That never
came true though, & eventually the boy was sent to boarding school.
Eventually, his father & mother died, & now Joyce & Ellie took
bringing up the boy into their hands ... & then came World War 2, &
Stephen plans to join the army to become an officer, just like his father was
... which is when Joyce & Ellie decided to wall him up, for his own good,
that he is spared the fate of his father ... Of course, once the war was
over, Stephen had been walled up for 6 years, & he wasn't normal anymore,
so for his own good, the asisters decided to keep him walled up ...
until now, antoher 27 years later, when Stephen managed to escape &
take his anger out on soldiers his twisted mind now makes responsible for what
happened to him ... In the end, stephen of course tries to get back into the
sisters' house, but is shot by army corporal Alan (John Hamill), a friend of
the ladies. Only then it turns out he only came to the house to get a portrait
of his father. On the outside this might look like a horror thriller
with a rather stupid storyline, but in fact this is a wonderfully written,
directed & acted black comedy, with a rather hilarious punchline when Beryl
Reid lets everyone (including the audience) in on the true, twisted story of
Stephen, & somehow everyone seems to understand these lovely old ladies (of
course, if you think this movie might have a slight resemblance to Arsenic
and Old Lace, you are right). A truly forgotten gem in the filmography of
Tigon, that wasn't extremely rich on gems (besides thiso ne, I can only
think of Witchfinder General).
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