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Mrs Rutledge (Eileen Atkins) invites Sylvester Brand (Ray Smith),
reverend Hibben (Alfred Burke) and her husband's (Alfred Lynch) best
friend Bosworth (Gareth Thomas) to her place to tell them her husband has
an affair with Aura Brand, Sylvester Brand's daughter. The three of them
refuse to believe her, mainly because Aura has been dead for a year, but
she plays with the local superstition, drops an old wives tale or two, and
when her husband confirms his affair with the dead girl, the three men are
at least curious and agree to at least check out the hut where Rutledge is
supposed to meet Aura. Close to the hut, they find footbrints of bare
feet (at this time of year?) in the sand, and Brand and the reverend are
soon won over to superstition. Bosworth tries to talk reason into them but
they won't listen, storm into the hut and kill Brand's daughter, who is
really in there - but it was Brand's
other (still alive) daughter Vanny. The three men decide to hush
everything up, and claim pneumonia was the cause of her death ... So, Mrs Rutledge got her will
after all and got rid of the girl her husband
had an affair with, just like she had plaqnned from square one - sure, the
girl wasn't a ghost at all, but the outcome's the
same ... Very well-played, mean, macabre and maze-like story
that is also carried by an old-fashioned yet atmospheric directorial
effort. Probably the best episode of the very uneven Shades of
Darkness.
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