MonsterGirl’s 150 Days of Classic Horror #105 The Night Digger 1971

THE NIGHT DIGGER 1971

Before I plunge into the undertow and tangled desires of The Night Digger, let me say this film deserves far more than a passing glance. With its atmosphere of simmering isolation, fractured identity, and the quiet menace that seeps through every frame, it’s a psychological thriller that truly stays with you. I’m only scratching the surface here, but down the road at The Last Drive-In, I plan to excavate its buried secrets, dig them up, dissect its twisted relationships, and explore how longing and danger entwine in the film’s haunted corners. For now, consider this just the first turn in a much darker labyrinth.

The Night Digger (1971) stalks the edges of sanity and safety of some of the most infamous British psycho-sexual thrillers. It’s like an uninvited guest, a film that marries domestic claustrophobia with seething, repressed desire under Alastair Reid’s deft direction. Reid, primarily known for television work (The Avengers, Danger Man), brings a TV director’s precision to the big screen, crafting an atmosphere thick with unspoken tension and voyeuristic intimacy. His style here is restrained yet insidious—long takes linger on mundane domestic tasks, subtly twisting them into acts of quiet desperation or unsettling eroticism. The camera becomes a silent accomplice, observing the crumbling facade of a household built on secrets.

Patricia Neal was one of her generation’s most acclaimed American actresses, celebrated for her powerful, intelligent performances on both stage and screen. Rising to prominence in the late 1940s, Neal quickly became known for her depth and authenticity, often portraying strong, independent women. Her career was marked by both critical and popular success, earning her an Academy Award for Best Actress for her unforgettable role as Alma Brown in Hud (1963), as well as a Tony Award, a Golden Globe, and two BAFTAs.

Among her most notable films are The Fountainhead (1949), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), A Face in the Crowd (1957), Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), and The Subject Was Roses (1968), for which she received another Oscar nomination. Neal’s career was also defined by remarkable resilience—after suffering a series of strokes in 1965, she made an extraordinary comeback, continuing to deliver acclaimed performances for decades. Her legacy endures as a symbol of talent, strength, and perseverance in American cinema.

At the heart of The Night Digger’s suffocating world is Patricia Neal as Maura Prince, delivering a performance of extraordinary nuance and physicality. Neal, still carrying traces of her real-life stroke recovery, imbues Maura with a palpable fragility and pent-up yearning. Her movements are deliberate, almost stiff, yet crackling with suppressed energy. Maura cares for her blind, manipulative mother Edith (Pamela Brown) in a decaying, Gothic-tinged villa outside London—a prison of faded gentility. Neal masterfully conveys Maura’s isolation and hunger for connection through subtle glances and the weary cadence of her voice. Her chemistry with Nicholas Clay as Billy Jarvis, the enigmatic young laborer she invites into their home, is the film’s volatile core. Clay, in his film debut, radiates a dangerous, animalistic charm. Billy is both savior and predator—a drifter whose rough hands and sullen charisma awaken Maura’s dormant passions while hinting at a capacity for violence. Billy is responsible for a series of murders of young women in the countryside. He is a haunted drifter with a broken past. A cold-blooded predator whose yearning for connection curdles into violence, leaving a trail of buried secrets beneath the surface of rural England.

Clay’s most iconic screen moment came as Lancelot in John Boorman’s Excalibur (1981), where his brooding, romantic presence left a lasting mark on Arthurian cinema. He also played Mellors in Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1981), Tristan in Lovespell (1981), and Patrick Redfern in the Agatha Christie adaptation Evil Under the Sun (1982), showing off his range from literary heroes to murder suspects.

The plot unfurls with deliberate unease. Maura, starved for affection and agency, hires Billy to renovate their crumbling garage. His presence disrupts the stale equilibrium. He flirts with Maura, indulges Edith’s whims — Clay’s Billy Jarvis in The Night Digger echoes the chilling charisma of Robert Montgomery’s Danny in Night Must Fall (1937), both men insinuating themselves into the lives of vulnerable older women—Pamela Brown as Mrs. Edith Bramson and Dame May Whitty as Mrs. Bramson. Both old women, respectively, mask predatory intent with a veneer of charm and servitude. Like Montgomery’s Danny, whose narcissistic need for control and attention seduces and ultimately destroys those around him, Clay’s Billy radiates a dangerous allure, preying on Maura’s loneliness while quietly unraveling the household from within as he insinuates himself.

Reid and screenwriter Roald Dahl (adapting his own story “Nunc Dimittis”) meticulously build dread through small transgressions: Billy’s possessive gaze, his unsettling familiarity, and the discovery of a hidden, bloodstained shirt—the film’s psycho-sexual tension peaks in key scenes charged with disturbing intimacy. One standout moment sees Billy stripping wallpaper with raw, almost violent physicality while Maura watches, transfixed—a metaphor for stripping away her own repressed layers. Later, a rain-lashed confrontation between Billy and a local woman he seduced (and possibly assaulted) culminates in her brutal murder, witnessed partially by Maura. This act shatters any illusion of Billy’s innocence and forces Maura into a terrifying complicity.

Cinematographer Alex Thomson (later famed for Excalibur 1981, Legend 1985) paints the film in a palette of damp greens, greys, and oppressive shadows. His camera work is claustrophobic, often framing characters through doorways or windows, emphasizing their entrapment. Interior scenes feel airless, while the mist-shrouded English countryside outside offers no escape, only more gloom. The decaying villa, brought to life by art director Roy Stannard, breathes with its own presence—its dusty grandeur, narrow corridors, and hidden spaces mirroring Maura’s stifled psyche and the secrets festering within its walls. Stannard’s design masterfully blends genteel decay with underlying menace.

Bernard Ebbinghouse’s score is a crucial, unsettling element. It avoids traditional horror tropes, instead employing sparse, discordant strings, melancholic piano motifs, and eerie electronic drones. It underscores the film’s pervasive unease, amplifying the quiet horror of domesticity corrupted and the chilling ambiguity of Maura’s choices. The music feels like the sound of frayed nerves and suppressed screams.

The film’s climax is an understated horror. Maura, now fully aware of Billy’s murderous nature and implicated in the cover-up (she helps him dispose of the body in a gruesomely practical scene involving a concrete floor), makes a desperate, twisted bid for freedom. She doesn’t flee or turn him in. Instead, she manipulates Billy’s possessiveness and Edith’s dependence, orchestrating a final, chilling act that eliminates both her jailers—mother and lover—in one stroke.

The final shots show Maura driving Billy’s cherished car alone, finally in control, her face a mask of ambiguous liberation and profound trauma. This conclusion is far more disturbing than simple catharsis; it’s the birth of a monster forged in desperation.

The Night Digger remains a potent, unsettling gem. Reid’s direction, Neal’s fearless performance, Thomson’s atmospheric visuals, Stannard’s oppressive design, and Ebbinghouse’s dissonant score coalesce into a uniquely British brand of psycho-sexual horror. It’s less about graphic violence and more about the violence done to the soul through isolation, manipulation, and the terrifying lengths one might go to grasp a sliver of agency. It’s a film that lingers, not with jump scares, but with the chilling echo of a concrete floor being poured over a terrible secret and the sight of a woman driving into an uncertain dawn, forever changed.

#105 down, 45 to go! Your EverLovin’ Joey, formally & affectionately known as MonsterGirl!

MonsterGirl’s 13 Days of Halloween: Obscure Films Better Than Candy Corn!

13 Days of schlock, shock…horror and some truly authentic moments of terror…it’s my pre-celebratory Halloween viewing schedule which could change at any time, given a whim or access to a long coveted obscure gem!

No doubt AMC and TCM will be running a slew of gems from the archives of Horror films to celebrate this coming Halloween! Films we LOVE and could watch over and over never tiring of them at all…

For my 13 days of Halloween, I thought I might watch a mix of obscure little gems, some vintage horror & Sci-Fi, film noir, and mystery/thriller. Halloween is a day to celebrate masterpieces like The Haunting, The Tingler, House on Haunted Hill, Curse of The Demon, Pit and The Pendulum, Let’s Scare Jessica To Death, and Psycho just to name a few favorites.

But the days leading up to this fine night of film consumption should be tempered with rare and weird beauties filled with a great cast of actors and actresses. Films that repulse and mystify, part oddity and partly plain delicious fun. Somewhat like Candy Corn is…for me!

I’ll be adding my own stills in a bit!…so stay tuned and watch a few of these for yourselves!

The Witch Who Came From The Sea 1976

Millie Perkins bravely plays a very disturbed woman who goes on a gruesome killing spree, culminating from years of abuse from her drunken brute of a father. Very surreal and disturbing, Perkins is a perfect delusional waif who is bare-breasted most of the time.

Ghost Story/Circle of Fear: Television Anthology series

5 episodes-

The Phantom of Herald Square stars David Soul as a man who remains ageless, sort of.

House of Evil, starring Melvin Douglas as a vindictive grandpa who uses the power of telepathy to communicate with his only granddaughter (Jodie Foster) Judy who is a deaf-mute. Beware the creepy muffin people.

A Touch of Madness, stars Rip Torn and Geraldine Page and the lovely Lynn Loring. Nothing is as it seems in the old family mansion. Is it madness that runs in the family or unsettled ghosts?

Bad Connection stars Karen Black as a woman haunted by her dead husband’s ghost.

The Dead We Leave Behind stars, Jason Robards and Stella Stevens. Do the dead rise up if you don’t bury them in time, and can they speak through a simple television set?

Night Warning 1983

Susan Tyrrell plays Aunt Cheryl to Jimmy McNichol’s Billy, a boy who lost his parents at age 3 in a bad car wreck leaving him to be raised by his nutty Aunt. Billy’s on the verge of turning 17 and planning on leaving the sickly clutches of doting Aunt Cheryl and she’ll kill anyone who gets in the way of keeping her beloved boy with her always…Tyrrell is soooo good at being sleazy, she could almost join the Baby Jane club of Grande Dame Hag Cinema, making Bette Davis’s Baby Jane seem wholesome in comparison.

Also known as Butcher Baker Nightmare Maker...

Murder By Natural Causes (1979 Made for TV movie)

Written by Richard Levinson and William Link the geniuses who gave us Columbo, this film is a masterpiece in cat and mouse. Wonderfully acted by veteran players, Hal Holbrook, Katherine Ross and Richard Anderson, and Barry Bostwick. Holbrook plays a famous mentalist, and his cheating wife has plans to kill him.

Tension 1949

from IMDb -A meek pharmacist creates an alternate identity under which he plans to murder the bullying liquor salesman who has become his wife’s lover. Starring Richard Basehart, Audrey Totter, Cyd Charisse, and Barry Sullivan

Messiah of Evil aka Dead People 1973

A girl arrives on the California coast looking for her father, only to learn that he’s disappeared. The town is filled with eerie people and a strange atmosphere of dread. She hooks up with a drifter and they both uncover the true nature of the weird locals and what they’re up to. They learn the horrific secret about the townspeople…This film is very atmospheric and quite an original moody piece. Starring Marianna Hill, Michael Greer, Joy Bang, and Elisha Cook Jr.

Devil Times Five aka Peopletoys 1974

This film is a very unsettling ride about a busload of extremely psychopathic children who escape after their transport bus crashes. Finding their way to a lodge, they are taken in by the vacationing adults and are eventually terrorized by these really sick kids. Claustrophobic and disturbing. Stars Sorrell Booke, Gene Evans. Leif Garrett plays one of the violently homicidal kids.

The Night Digger 1971

Starring the great Patricia Neal, this is based on the Joy Cowley novel and penned with Cowley for the screen by the wonderfully dark Roald Dahl, Neal’s husband at the time.

From IMDb -Effective psychological love story with a macabre twist not found in the original Joy Cowley novel. The dreary existence of middle-aged spinster Maura Prince takes an unexpected turn with the arrival of young handyman Billy Jarvis, but there is more to Billy than meets the eye. This well-crafted film, full of sexual tension and Gothic flavor, was Patricia Neal’s second after her return to acting, her real-life stroke worked deftly into the story by then-husband Roald Dahl. Written by Shane Pitkin

They Call It Murder (1971 Made for TV movie)

A small-town district attorney has his hands filled with several major investigations, including a gambler’s murder and a possible insurance scam. Starring Jim Hutton, Lloyd Bochner, Leslie Nielsen, Ed Asner and Jo Anne Pflug

A Knife For The Ladies 1974

Starring Ruth Roman and Jack Elam, there is a jack the ripper-like killer terrorizing this small Southwest town. Most all the victims are prostitutes. A power struggle ensues between the town’s Sheriff and Investigator Burns who tries to solve the murders.

Born To Kill 1947

Directed by the amazing Robert Wise ( The Haunting, West Side Story, Day The Earth Stood Still )this exploration into brutal noir is perhaps one of the most darkly brooding films of the genre. Starring that notorious bad guy of cinema Lawrence Tierney who plays Sam Wild, of all things, a violent man who has already killed a girl he liked and her boyfriend. He hops a train to San Francisco where he meets Helen played by Claire Trevor who is immediately drawn to this dangerous man.

The Strangler 1964

Starring the inimitably imposing Victor Buono, who plays mama’s ( Ellen Corby/Grandma Walton) boy Leo Kroll, a psychopathic misogynous serial killer, under the thumb of his emasculating mother. Kroll’s got a doll fetish and a fever for strangling young women with their own pantyhose. The opening scene is chilling as we watch only Buono’s facial expressions as he masturbates while stripping one of the dolls nude by his last victim’s body. Part police procedural, this is a fascinating film, and Buono is riveting as Leo Kroll a psycho-sexual fetish killer who is really destroying his mother each time he murders another young woman. Really cool film by Allied Artist

Murder Once Removed (1971 made for tv movie)

A doctor and the wife of one of his wealthy patients hatch a plot to get rid of her husband so they can be together and get his money. Starring John Forsythe, Richard Kiley, and Barbara Bain.

Scream Pretty Peggy (1973 made for tv movie)

This stars Bette Davis who plays Mrs. Elliot. Ted Bessell plays her son Jeffrey Elliot a sculptor who hires young women to take care of his elderly mother and his insane sister who both live in the family mansion with him. Also stars Sian Barbara Allen. What can I say? I love Bette Davis in anything, specially made for tv movies, where something isn’t quite right with the family dynamic. Lots of vintage fun directed by Gordon Hessler

The Man Who Cheated Himself 1950

A veteran homicide detective witnesses his socialite girlfriend kill her husband. Then what ensues is his inexperienced brother is assigned to the case. Starring Lee J. Cobb, Jane Wyatt, and John Dall.

The Flying Serpent 1946

Classic horror/sci-fi flick that just doesn’t get the attention it deserves. Almost as fun as The Killer Shrews.  Starring veteran actor George Zucco

The Pyjama Girl Case 1977

This more obscure Giallo film was directed by Flavio Mogherini and starred one of my favorite actors Ray Milland, Also starred Mel Ferrer and the beautiful model/actress Delilah Di Lazzaro. I’ve left my passion for Giallo films in the dust these days, but I decided to watch one that was a little off the beaten track.

From IMDb- Two seemingly separate stories in New South Wales: a burned, murdered body of a young woman is found on the beach, and a retired inspector makes inquiries; also, Linda, a waitress and ferry attendant, has several lovers and marries one, but continues seeing the others. The police have a suspect in the murder, but the retired inspector is convinced they’re wrong; he continues a methodical investigation. Linda and her husband separate, and there are complications. Will the stories cross or are they already twisted together? Written by <jhailey@hotmail.com>

Cul-de Sac 1966

Directed by Roman Polanski starring Donald Pleasance and  Françoise Dorléac as Teresa

A wounded criminal and his dying partner take refuge in a seaside castle inhabited by a cowardly Englishman and his strong-willed French wife. A bizarre dynamic unfolds as this eccentric couple once captives of the criminals at first, their relationship strangely begins to evolve into something else.

Dr Tarr’s Terror Dungeon aka Mansion of Madness 1973

This is a mysterious and nightmarish excursion into the “the inmates have taken over the asylum” theme. Based upon Edgar Allan Poe’s The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Feather

Blue Sunshine 1978

Three women are murdered at a party. the wrong man is accused of the crimes. yet still more brutal killings continue throughout the town. What is the shocking truth behind this bizarre epidemic of …people losing their hair and turning into violent psychopaths?

Homebodies 1974

Starring Peter Brocco, Francis Fuller, William Hanson, the adorable Ruth McDevitt, Ian Wolfe, and Paula Trueman playing elderly tenants who first try to thwart by rigging accidents, a group of developers from tearing down their building. Old homes and old people…It turns into murder! This is a wonderfully campy 70s-stylized black comedy/horror film. I love Ruth McDevitt as Miss Emily in Kolchak: The Night Stalker series.

The ensemble cast is brilliantly droll and subtly gruesome as they try to stave off the impending eviction and relocation to the institutional prison life of a cold nursing home facility.

A modern Gothic commentary on Urban Sprawl, the side effects of Capitalism on the elderly and their dust-covered dreams, and the fine balance between reverence for the past, and the inevitability of modernity.

The jaunty music by Bernardo Segáll and lyrics by Jeremy Kronsberg for “Sassafras Sundays” is fabulous!

The Evictors 1979

Directed by Charles B. Pierce whose style has somewhat of a documentary feel ( The Town That Dreaded  Sundown 1976 Legend of Boggy Creek 1972) This film has a very stark and dreading tone. Starring one of my favorite unsung naturally beautiful actresses, Jessica Harper ( Suspiria, Love and Death, Stardust Memories, and the muse Pheonix in DePalma’s Faustian musical Phantom of The Paradise ) and another great actor Michael Parks. A young couple Ruth and Ben Watkins move into a beautiful old farmhouse in a small town in Louisiana. The house has a violent past, and things start happening that evoke fear and dread for the newlyweds. Are the townspeople trying to drive them out, or is there something more nefarious at work? Very atmospheric and quietly brutal at times. Also stars Vic Morrow

Jennifer 1953

Starring Ida Lupino and Howard Duff. Agnes Langsley gets a job as a caretaker of an old estate. The last occupant was the owner’s cousin Jennifer who has mysteriously disappeared. Agnes starts to believe that Jennifer might have been murdered. Is Jim Hollis the man whom she is now in love with… responsible?

Lured 1947

Directed by Douglas Sirk and starring Lucille Ball, George Sanders, and my beloved Boris Karloff!

There is a serial killer in London, who lures his young female victims through the personal ads. He taunts the police by sending cryptic notes right before he is about to murder again. The great cast includes Cedric Hardwicke, George Zucco, and Charles Coburn...

Love From A Stranger 1947

A newly married woman begins to suspect that her husband is a killer and that she is soon to be his next victim. Starring John Hodiak and Sylvia Sidney

Savage Weekend 1979

Several couples head upstate to the country and are stalked by a murderer behind a ghoulish mask.

The Beguiled 1971

Directed by the great Don Siegel ( Invasion of The Body Snatchers 1956, The Killers 1964 Dirty Harry 1971 This stars Clint Eastwood, Geraldine Page and Elizabeth Hartman. Eastwood plays John McBurney who is a Union soldier imprisoned in a Confederate girls boarding school.  A very slow yet tautly drawn web of psycho-sexual unease forms as he works his charms on each of these lonely women’s psyche.

The Mad Doctor of Market Street 1942

An old-forgotten classic horror, starring Lionel Atwill and Una Merkel. Atwill plays A mad scientist forced out of society when his experiments are discovered. He winds up on a tropical island, there by holding the locals hostage by controlling and terrorizing them.

The Man Who Changed His Mind original title (The Man Who Lived Again) 1936

Directed by Robert Stevenson. Starring my favorite of all Boris Karloff, and Anna Lee of Bedlam

Karloff plays Dr. Laurence, a once-respected scientist who begins to delve into the origins of the mind and soul connection.

Like any good classic mad scientist film, the science community rejects him, and so he risks losing everything for which he has worked, shunned by the scientific community he continues to experiment and further his research, but at what cost!…

The Monster Maker 1944

This stars J. Carrol Naish and Ralph Morgan. Naish plays Dr Igor Markoff who injects his enemies with the virus that causes Acromegaly, a deformity that enlarges the head and facial structures of his victims.

The Pyx 1973

I love Karen Black and not just because she let herself be chased by that evil Zuni doll in Trilogy of Terror or dressed up like Mrs Allardice in Burnt Offerings. She’s been in so many memorable films, in particular for me from the 70s. Here she plays Elizabeth Lucy a woman who might have fallen victim to a devil cult. Christopher Plummer plays Detective Sgt. Jim Henderson investigating the death of this heroin-addicted prostitute. The story is told using the device of flashback to tell Elizabeth’s story.

Five Minutes To Live 1961

Johnny Cash, the immortal man in black, plays the very unstable Johnny Cabot, who is part of a gang of thugs who terrorize a small town. This is a low-budget thriller later released as Door to Door Maniac. I could listen to Cash tune his guitar while drinking warm beer and I’d be satisfied, the man just gives me chills. Swooning little me…….!

The Psychic 1977

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In this more obscure EuroShocker, a clairvoyant… the gorgeous Jennifer O’Neill, suffers from visions, which inspire her to smash open a section of wall in her husband’s home where she discovers a skeleton behind it.

She sets out to find the truth about how the victim wound up there, and if there’s a connection between their death and her fate as well!

Too Scared To Scream 1985

Directed by actor Tony Lo Bianco A killer is brutally attacking several tenants that live in a high-rise apartment building in New York City. Mike Connors stars as Detective Lt. Alex Dinardo who investigates the killings. Also stars another unsung actress, Anne Archer, Leon Isaac Kennedy, and Ian McShane

Violent Midnight 1963

An axe murderer is running loose in a New England town! Also known as Psychomania not to be confused with the fabulous British film of devil-worshiping bikers who come back to life starring Beryl Reid. This film features Dick Van Patten, Sylvia Miles, James Farentino, and Sheppard Strudwick. It’s got it’s own creepy little pace going for it.

When Worlds Collide 1951

Another classic sci-fi world is headed toward destruction film, that I remember from my childhood. Starring Barbara Rush and John Hoyt, two of my favorite character actors. It’s a lot of fun to watch and a well-made film that’s off the beaten path from… Forbidden Planet and War of The Worlds.

All The Kind Strangers  (1974 made for tv film)

Starring Stacy Keach, Sammantha Eggar, John Savage, and Robby Benson

A couple traveling through a backwoods area is held hostage by a group of orphan children who want them to be their parents. Whenever an adult refuses to participate in the delusion, they are killed. Great disturbing made for tv movie.

The Todd Killings 1971

Directed by Barry Shear and stars Robert F. Lyons as Skipper Todd, a very sociopathic young man who holds sway over his younger followers like a modern-day Svengali. Also starring Richard Thomas, Belinda Montgomery, and the great Barbara Bel Geddes as Skipper’s mother who takes care of the elderly.

From IMDb-“Based on the true story of ’60s thrill-killer Charles Schmidt (“The Pied Piper of Tucson”), Skipper Todd (Robert F. Lyons) is a charismatic 23-year old who charms his way into the lives of high school kids in a small California town. Girls find him attractive and are only too willing to accompany him to a nearby desert area to be his “girl for the night.” Not all of them return, however. Featuring Richard Thomas as his loyal hanger-on and a colorful assortment of familiar actors in vivid character roles including Barbara Bel Geddes, Gloria Grahame, Edward Asner, Fay Spain, James Broderick, and Michael Conrad.” Written by alfiehitchie

This film has a slow-burning brutality that creates a disturbing atmosphere of social and cultural imprisonment by complacency and the pressure to conform, even with the non-conformists.

Todd almost gets away with several murders, as the people around him idolize him as a hero, and not the ruthless manipulating psychopathic killer that he is. Frighteningly stunning at times. One death scene, in particular, is absolutely chilling in his handling of realism balanced with a psychedelic lens. This film is truly disturbing for it’s realism and for a 1971 release.

To Kill A Clown 1972

Starring Alan Alda and Blythe Danner. Danner and Heath Lamberts play a young hippie couple who couple rent a secluded cabin so that they can try and reconnect and save their marriage.

Alan Alda plays Maj. Evelyn Ritchie the man who owns the property and who is also a military-raised- sociopath who has two vicious dogs that he uses as an extension of his madness and anger.