The first part of Filmbar70's Top Ten British Thrillers of the '70s, created for the screening of 'And Soon the Darkness'.
No. 10 - Deviation (1971) Directed by Jose Ramon Larraz, starring Karl Lanchbury
No. 9 - Killer's Moon (1978) Directed by Alan Birkinshaw, starring David Jackson
No. 8 - Fear in the Night (1972) Directed by Jimmy Sangster, starring Judy Geeson, Peter Cushing, Ralph Bates, Joan Collins
No. 7 - Fright (1971) Directed by Peter Collinson, starring Susan George, Honor Blackman, Ian Bannen
No. 6 - Fragment of Fear (1970) Directed by Richard C. Sarafian, starring David Hemmings, Gayle Hunnicutt

Filmbar70 celebrates British thrillers of the '70s, films that presented psychotic terror squarely at a young crowd in drab times, often depicting them in turn as terrorised babysitting teens, late to the party hippies on a misguided kick, disenfranchised social misfits, or wayward middle class family units self-destructing. They indeed reflected the pessimistic times of a beleaguered country in the throes of austerity and in part proved to be the last gasp of British genre industry. And they often starred Judy Geeson.
The films in our top ten can be seen primarily as a continuation of 'Peeping Tom' ('60) and, of course, 'Psycho' ('60), with their winning mixture of knife-wielding exploitation, noir and kitchen sink drama. With the advent of Powell and Hitchcock's seminal films even the likes of Hammer would occasionally drop the gothic template and get in on the act with titles such as 'Stop Me Before I Kill' ('60), 'Maniac' ('63) and 'Paranoiac' ('63) often depicting unhinged beatniks up to no good. The trend continued into the mid to late 60's and into the early '70s with 'Night Must Fall' ('64), 'Twisted Nerve' ('68) and 'The Night Digger' ('71) presenting disturbed youth at a time when it was supposed to be swinging.
A sub genre term 'home invasion' arrived and located itself on these shores with 1971's 'Straw Dogs'. Peckinpah's film had a huge effect on British exploitation films that followed although home invasion terror could possibly be traced 4 years earlier with Peter Collinson's visceral 'The Penthouse' ('67). Indeed Collinson would follow up on his home invasion theme the same year as 'Straw Dogs' with 'Fright', featuring the perpetually abused 'Dogs' star Susan George.
Of course Brit thrill roots go back as far back as the late 1920's, films such as Alfred Hitchcock's 'Blackmail' ('29) and 'The Lodger' ('29). However these dark thrills were maybe out of vogue with the times and didn't continue by and large through the depression, studios wanted lighter fair. However with the heyday of film noir came the occasional slice of psychological terror such as 'Gaslight' ('40), the great Thorold Dickinson's original British version, which Hollywood remade and shamelessly tried to bury.
Bringing it right back to the 70's and tonight's feature presentation
'And Soon the Darkness' ('70) is probably the pinnacle of British thrillers of the time. The great director Robert Fuest died in March and our evening is inspired and dedicated to him.

Part 2 here: [ Ссылка ]

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