MonsterGirl’s 150 Days of Classic Horror # 115 Play Misty for Me 1971/ That Cold Day in the Park 1969 & Reflection of Fear 1973

SPOILER ALERT!

There’s a unique power in stories driven by women, especially when they’re centered on characters navigating the shadows of psychic disturbance. This trilogy stands out not just for placing women at the heart of each narrative, but for exploring the intricate, often unsettling ways their inner turmoil shapes the world around them. Each film invites us into the minds of women whose struggles with reality, desire, and identity become the engine of suspense, offering a raw, complex portrait that challenges stereotypes and makes their journeys compelling, deeply human, harrowingly intense, and utterly chilling!

PLAY MISTY FOR ME 1971

Misty Grooves and Razor-Edged Obsession: The Wild Pulse of Play Misty for Me (1971)

Dave Garver: “You haven’t got the faintest idea of what love is, we don’t even know each other.”

Evelyn Draper: “I know you. I know you. I’ve known you ever since the first time you played ‘Misty’ for me. I knew you’d come back. I just knew it.”

Play Misty for Me isn’t just Clint Eastwood’s directorial debut—it’s a time capsule of early ’70s cool, a film that pulses with the era’s groovy energy while laying the groundwork for the psycho-stalker subgenre that would haunt thrillers for decades. The story was crafted by Jo Heims, whose screenwriting career includes such notable works as You’ll Like My Mother (1972) and Nightmare in Badham County (1976), as well as an uncredited contribution to Dirty Harry (1971).

Set against the sun-drenched, jazz-soaked backdrop of Carmel-by-the-Sea, the film follows Dave Garver (Eastwood), a smooth-talking womanizer and late-night DJ whose velvet voice and easy charm make him a local celebrity and the unwitting target of Evelyn Draper (Jessica Walter), a woman whose obsession with him spirals from flirtation to full-blown menace and downright bloody threat.

From the opening moments, Eastwood’s direction is both assured and stylish, capturing the mellow vibe of the California coast while never letting us forget the tension simmering beneath the surface. Cinematographer Frank Stanley bathes the film in the golden light of Monterey Bay, giving even the most sinister moments a lush, seductive quality. The camera lingers on the details that define the era: the bold fashion, the cars like Dave’s sleek Jaguar XK150, the record collections, and the laid-back jazz that floats through Dave’s studio, setting a mood that’s both inviting and sensual as hell and faintly dangerous.

The film’s psychology is as sharp as its style. What begins as a casual encounter—Dave meeting Evelyn at a local bar, drawn in by her request for him to play “Misty”– quickly turns into a study in obsession.

While Johnny Mathis’s 1959 vocal version is the most famous and is often associated with the song, the film itself uses Erroll Garner’s original instrumental recording during key scenes and the closing credits. After seeing him perform live, Clint Eastwood specifically obtained the rights to Garner’s version.

In the 1960s, there were some films that edged toward the idea of a disturbed or violent woman, such as Joan Crawford in Strait-Jacket (1964) and Jean Arless in William Castle’s Homicidal 1961. There’s also Shelley Winters in What’s the Matter With Helen? in 1971; these are off the top of my head. Or the “Scream Queen” era, where women were often imperiled but rarely the source of terror themselves. However, these antiheroines were generally not stalkers in the modern sense, nor were they depicted with the psychological complexity (except for Winters) and agency that Play Misty for Me brought to Evelyn Draper.

Jessica Walter’s performance is a vivid illustration of volatility, shifting from vulnerable to predatory in a heartbeat. Without any other actress antagonist coming to mind at the moment, Evelyn is the prototype for the “psycho woman stalker” archetype. Walter infuses her with a humanity that makes her both terrifying and strangely sympathetic. Eastwood, meanwhile, plays Dave with a mix of swagger and growing unease, his laid-back confidence slowly eroded by the realization that he’s lost control of the situation. Marking Evelyn’s complete descent into homicidal mania and shattering any remaining sense of safety in Dave’s world.

The film’s sequence of events unfolds with relentless logic. After their initial night together, Evelyn’s presence becomes inescapable: She shows up unannounced at Dave’s home, his workplace, and even his favorite haunts. Her gifts and phone calls grow more intrusive, and her jealousy becomes more intense, especially when Dave reconnects with his ex-girlfriend, Tobie (Donna Mills).

Each encounter ratchets up the tension, culminating in scenes of shocking violence: Evelyn’s outbursts, the unforgettable moment she trashes Dave’s home, in one of the film’s most shocking moments. The housekeeper, Birdie, played by actress Clarice Taylor, arrives at Dave’s house, unaware of the danger lurking inside. Evelyn, already in a state of violent obsession, ambushes Birdie in the kitchen. The attack is sudden and brutal as Evelyn grabs a butcher knife and stabs her repeatedly. The violence is jarring, especially against the backdrop of the otherwise laid-back coastal setting.

John Larch’s Sgt. McCallum shares a dynamic with Clint Eastwood’s Dave Garver that’s both grounded and quietly compelling as the skeptical protector and pragmatic confidant. Their relationship is marked by a mix of professional distance and genuine concern. McCallum comes across as the steady, no-nonsense cop—he listens to Dave’s increasingly desperate stories about Evelyn’s escalating threats, and while he keeps things professional, there’s a real sense that he’s looking out for Dave. Their exchanges reveal a subtle tension; their conversations have this push-and-pull: Dave’s on edge, while McCallum has a measured, procedural calm and practical approach that never lets the drama rattle him. Still, you can tell there’s mutual respect—McCallum doesn’t brush off Dave’s fears, and when things get serious, he’s right there, willing to step in and risk his own life.

In Play Misty for Me, the name Annabel carries significant psychological and literary weight, directly referencing Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Annabel Lee.” In the film, Evelyn uses the name “Annabel” as an alias when she moves in with Tobie, Dave’s girlfriend, in the story’s final act. This is more than just a pseudonym—it’s a deliberate allusion to Poe’s poem, which is quoted in the film. Using the poem as a chilling signal of her ongoing obsession and her refusal to let go, after she’s been released from psychiatric care, she calls Dave at the radio station, claiming she’s moving to Hawaii for a fresh start. During this call, she recites lines from “Annabel Lee,” invoking the poem’s themes of undying, doomed love to reinforce her fixation and hint at her continued presence in his life. Poe’s “Annabel Lee” is a haunting meditation on obsessive, undying love and the pain of loss. The poem’s narrator mourns a beautiful woman whose love was so intense that even the angels envied it, leading to her death.

The harrowing climax of Play Misty for Me unfolds in a storm of violence and psychological terror at Tobie Williams’ (Donna Mills) coastal home. Evelyn, having assumed the identity of “Annabel” to pose as Tobie’s new roommate, has already murdered police Sgt. McCallum (John Larch) by stabbing him in the heart with a pair of scissors as he checks on Tobie. Inside the house, Evelyn has bound and gagged Tobie and menaces her with a long, with the gleaming pair of scissors. Evelyn, in a jealous rage, slashes a portrait of Dave with those scissors, threatening to cut her hair and taunting her with deranged, possessive fury. “God, you’re dumb!”

Evelyn Draper: “I hope Dave likes what he sees when he gets here. Because that’s what he’s taking to Hell with him!”

When Dave finally arrives, he discovers the aftermath of Evelyn’s rampage: McCallum’s body, Tobie tied up and terrified, and Evelyn lurking in the shadows. In a desperate struggle, Evelyn attacks Dave with a knife, slashing him repeatedly. Bloodied but fighting for his life and Tobie’s, Dave manages to fend her off. As the confrontation reaches its peak, Dave punches Evelyn and delivers a blow that sends her crashing through a large window and over the balcony, her body tumbling down the jagged cliffs to the rocks and ocean below.

The film closes with Dave and Tobie staggering out of the house, the trauma of the night still hanging in the fresh, newly free air, as the haunting sound of “Misty” plays—forever linking the song to the film’s unforgettable final act.

Music is woven into the film’s very fabric, not just as background but as a living, breathing presence. The jazz standards, the sultry DJ patter, and the now-iconic “Misty” all heighten the film’s emotional stakes, turning the soundtrack into a kind of siren song that lures both Dave and us deeper into the story’s dangerous undertow.

The film’s most tender and visually poetic moment unfolds during the love scene between Dave and Tobie, set to Roberta Flack’s iconic “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.” Bathed in golden California sunlight and slow, dreamy camera movements, the scene radiates a sense of deep intimacy and vulnerability. The song’s gentle, aching beauty perfectly captures the mood of new love—or, I should say, an old love Dave is finally ready to commit to—and bittersweet longing.

Even though Eastwood’s direction is both economical and expressive, it makes the most of the film’s modest budget while imbuing every scene with a sense of place and time. The editing is tight, the pacing unhurried but never slack, allowing the dread to build organically. Evelyn’s violent confrontations, Dave’s desperate attempts to break free, and the final showdown in the isolated house are staged with a raw, almost documentary realism that makes the film’s psychological horror feel all the more immediate.

By the time the credits roll, Play Misty for Me has done more than tell a story—it’s mapped the landscape of obsession, seduction, and danger with a clarity that still resonates. The film’s legacy is undeniable: it set the template for countless thrillers to come, from Fatal Attraction to Single White Female, but remains singular for its blend of groovy style, psychological insight, and the unmistakable chill of a love gone violently wrong.

THAT COLD DAY IN THE PARK 1969

The Chilling Solitude of Possession: Robert Altman’s That Cold Day in the Park (1969)

Robert Altman’s That Cold Day in the Park is a quietly unnerving psychological thriller, a film that unfolds like a meditation on loneliness and longing on the rain-soaked streets of Vancouver. Anchored by Sandy Dennis’s remarkable performance as Frances Austen—a wealthy, emotionally stunted woman living alone in her inherited apartment—the film is a study in isolation, obsession, and the dangerous places where compassion blurs into control.

The story begins with Frances, surrounded by her much older social circle in her gloomy, stifling home, her emotional distance mirrored by Altman’s layered soundtrack and László Kovács’s muted, drifting cinematography.

Frances’s attention is drawn to a silent, rain-soaked teenage boy (Michael Burns) sitting on a park bench outside her window. Moved by a mix of concern and curiosity, she invites him inside, offering warmth, food, and a bed. The boy remains mute, his silence both a shield and a provocation, and Frances’s nurturing quickly turns to fixation. She locks him in his room at night, buys him new clothes, and fills the air with one-sided conversation, projecting her own loneliness and desire onto this enigmatic stranger.

The boy in That Cold Day in the Park is played by Michael Burns. In the film, his character is credited simply as “The Boy,” and his name is never revealed on screen or in the credits. This deliberate anonymity heightens the story’s sense of mystery and emotional distance, turning him into a kind of blank canvas for Frances’s projections and obsessions. The lack of a name also reinforces the film’s themes of alienation and objectification as he is less a fully realized individual to Frances than a vessel for her loneliness and desires.

Michael Burns’s performance is remarkable for its restraint and subtlety. For much of the film, he communicates through silence and body language, delivering what critics have described as a “Chaplinesque pantomime.” He moves through Frances’s apartment with a mix of vulnerability and quiet calculation, at times exuding a wounded gentleness, at others a hint of danger or opportunism. This ambiguity is key to the film’s tension: we, like Frances, are never quite sure of his intentions, or how much he is playing along versus feeling genuine sympathy or curiosity. When the boy finally speaks, it’s clear he’s not mute at all, deepening the psychological complexity of both his character and the film as a whole.

Michael Burns had a significant presence in this genre around the same time. In particular, he played George in The Mad Room (1969), a psychological horror drama starring Stella Stevens and Shelley Winters, which I’ve written about earlier in this series.

In that film, Burns’s character is one of two siblings released from a mental institution after being accused of murdering their parents as children. The Mad Room similarly explores themes of trauma, suspicion, and psychological instability, and Burns brings a comparable sense of ambiguity and emotional depth to his role as George. His performances in both films showcase his ability to convey complex, troubled young men caught in the webs of adult dysfunction and madness. His understated, enigmatic presence in That Cold Day in the Park and The Mad Room helped define a certain kind of vulnerable yet inscrutable youth in late-1960s psychological thrillers.

Altman’s direction is subtle but relentless, using long takes, extreme zooms, and patient panning shots to heighten the sense of voyeurism and emotional claustrophobia.

The boy, we learn, is not actually mute, he slips away at night to visit his bohemian sister Nina (Susanne Benton) and her boyfriend, revealing a life far more freewheeling and sexually liberated than Frances’s repressed existence. Yet he returns to Frances, drawn by her vulnerability and perhaps the comfort of her attention, even as her possessiveness grows more desperate and unnerving.

Francis lying on the bed -“I’m not going to get under the covers or anything. I’ll just lay on top. I have to tell you something. If you feel that you want to make love to me, it’s all right. I want you to make love to me. Please.”

The film’s tension builds as Frances’s fantasies of intimacy with the boy collide with the reality of his independence. After a failed attempt to seduce him—delivered to an empty bed, her words falling on a pile of dolls and pillows he has stuffed under the blankets while he’s out on his nightly prowls with his sister—Frances snaps. She nails shut the doors and windows, trapping him in the apartment, her need for connection now transformed into a kind of captivity. In a final, shattering bid to consummate her longing, Frances hires a prostitute (Luana Anders as Sylvia) to sleep with him, as she listens from outside the door.

Sandy Dennis’s Frances moves through the dim apartment like a ghost, her face a mask of heartbreak and unraveling control as she waits and listens for the boy and Sylvia, in the bedroom, doing what she has longed to do. When jealousy and despair finally overwhelm her, Frances bursts in, her movements abrupt and almost childlike, and plunges a knife straight into Sylvia’s heart, sealing her descent into madness. The act is swift, shocking, and eerily silent—blood blooming against Sylvia’s body as she collapses, the room suddenly colder, Frances’s longing manifesting into violence in a single, irrevocable gesture.

The film’s mood is one of chilly, rain-drenched melancholy, with Johnny Mandel’s score and Kovács’s cinematography amplifying the sense of emotional isolation and creeping, suffocating dread.

Altman’s signature overlapping sound design and drifting camera work place us squarely in Frances’s disoriented perspective, making her breakdown both tragic and terrifying. Sandy Dennis’s performance is a masterclass in restraint and vulnerability—her Frances is at once childlike and ancient as an old soul, her need for love palpable but twisted by years of repression and solitude.

Sandy Dennis was renowned for her distinctive, deeply naturalistic approach to acting. A kind of raw, unvarnished vulnerability marked her performances. She brought to the screen and stage a sense of real, lived-in emotion that set her apart from many of her contemporaries. Dennis’s style can often be described as quirky, spontaneous, and idiosyncratic: she had a gift for embodying characters who seemed genuinely unpredictable, their thoughts and feelings flickering across her expressive face in real time with a jittery, fluttery, fragmented, tender-edged, and exquisitely exposed.

She was brilliant at portraying outsiders, eccentrics, and women on the edge of emotional crisis, making her characters feel both fragile and fiercely alive. Her voice, with its hesitant, sometimes halting cadence, and her subtle physical mannerisms, contributed to a sense of authenticity that made even the most neurotic or awkward characters sympathetic and compelling. Critics and collaborators frequently noted her fearlessness in exposing emotional rawness, as well as her ability to make silence as eloquent as dialogue. I adore her for this brand of unshielded, bold style of acting, which was clear in performances in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 1966, in particular, her Sylvia Barrett, a young and idealistic teacher in a tough New York City school, in Up the Down Staircase 1967, as Jill Banford in Mark Rydell’s adaptation of D. H. Lawrence’s 1923 novella The Fox 1967, and Arthur Hiller’s The Out-Of-Towners 1970, where she starred along side Jack Lemmon. Sandy Dennis was a bona fide member of the feline appreciation society. Her home was practically a cat conclave, which made her a kindred spirit for cat fanatics like me. It’s just another reason I love her!

That Cold Day in the Park still stands up for me as an early example of Altman’s fascination with female psychological breakdown, a theme he would revisit in Images and 3 Women. The film’s refusal to offer easy answers or conventional thrills makes it all the more haunting—a portrait of a woman so desperate for connection that she becomes both jailer and destroyer, her love as suffocating as the rain that never seems to stop falling outside her window. It stands as a criminally unsung tour de force of psycho-sexual horror, shock, and dread.

A REFLECTION OF FEAR 1973

Throught the Lookingglass: The Chilling Enigma of A Reflection of Fear (1973)

A Reflection of Fear is a haunting, deeply peculiar entry in early 1970s psychological horror, directed by acclaimed cinematographer William A. Fraker, who worked closely with director Roman Polanski to create Rosemary’s Baby’s distinctive, unsettling visual style. This film’s surface is lush and luminous, thanks to the evocative work of László Kovács, whose camera transforms the isolated Canadian mansion and its overgrown gardens into a dreamlike, claustrophobic world where reality and delusion become a watercolor wash.

The mood is one of constant unease, a chilly, almost narcotic atmosphere where every room seems haunted by secrets and every shadow hints at something unspeakable.

At the center is Marguerite, played by Sondra Locke in a performance that is both unsettling and fragile. Marguerite is a 15-year-old girl (though Locke was nearly twice that age), living in near-total isolation with her brittle mother Katherine (Mary Ure) and imperious grandmother Julia (Signe Hasso). Marguerite’s world is crowded with dolls—especially Aaron, her confidant and alter ego—and she spends her days talking to them, tending her science experiments, and injecting herself with mysterious medication. Her sense of reality is already tenuous when the story begins, but the return of her estranged father, Michael (Robert Shaw), now seeking a divorce and accompanied by his fiancée, Anne (Sally Kellerman), triggers a spiral into obsession and violence.

Fraker’s direction leans into the film’s psychosexual undercurrents and taboo anxieties. Marguerite’s yearning for her father quickly becomes disturbingly intense, her affection crossing boundaries and unsettling everyone, especially Anne, who watches in disbelief as Michael indulges his daughter’s every whim. The film’s most disquieting moments come from Locke’s performance: the way Marguerite clings to Michael, her gaze flickering between innocence and something far darker, and the scenes where she embraces or kisses him while Anne looks on in horror. The supporting cast, including Shaw’s quietly troubled Michael and Kellerman’s increasingly desperate Anne, adds to the film’s air of emotional paralysis, as if the entire household is drugged by the mansion’s oppressive history.

As the story unfolds, a series of murders shatters the fragile peace. First Katherine, then Julia, are killed in their beds by a shadowy figure—Marguerite’s “Aaron,” whose voice (provided by Gordon Anderson) echoes through the mansion with eerie, childlike menace.

The film’s editing, shaped by studio cuts to secure a PG rating, often jumps abruptly between scenes, heightening the sense of disorientation and leaving violence more implied than shown. Yet the lack of blood only amplifies the psychological horror, making each act feel more like a fevered hallucination than a crime.

The climax hits a breaking point of confusion and revelation. After a failed attempt at seduction and a disastrous encounter with a local boy, Marguerite’s world unravels completely. In a final confrontation, Michael is attacked by a hooded figure, revealed to be Marguerite, lost in the persona of Aaron. As she collapses, sobbing and unmasked, the film delivers its final, devastating twist: Michael learns via a recording that Marguerite was, in fact, born a boy, a secret kept hidden by her mother and grandmother. This revelation recasts the film’s entire psychosexual dynamic, transforming Marguerite’s identity crisis and longing for her father into something even more tragic and disturbing.

Marguerite’s upbringing as a girl was a deliberate act of concealment and control by her mother, Katharine, and grandmother, Julia, meant to sever her from her true identity and the outside world, with devastating consequences. She was kept living as a girl rather than a boy due to the controlling and deeply repressive motivations of her mother and grandmother. The film reveals that Marguerite was raised as a girl, a secret hidden from both Marguerite and her estranged father; a decision rooted in the older woman’s desire to isolate Marguerite from men and the outside world, reflecting their own deep mistrust and even hatred of men.

Throughout the film, there are hints of this agenda: Katherine and Julia are depicted as cold, emotionally distant, and highly controlling, keeping Marguerite cloistered within the mansion and away from any male influence. They go so far as to remove the labels from Marguerite’s medication and discourage any contact with her father, fearing that even a glimpse of Michael might tempt her to certain idolatry of the man and awaken desires they wish to suppress. The grandmother’s line, “We were so careful, Michael. We were so careful,” and the mother’s warnings about men—“Don’t ever let a man touch you,” virtually saying it’ll mean death, underscores their determination to control Marguerite’s identity and sexuality.

The reveal at the film’s end—that Marguerite is biologically male—casts all of this in a tragic and disturbing light. The mother and grandmother’s motivations appear to be a toxic mix of misandry, sexual repression, and a desire to erase masculinity from Marguerite’s life entirely, perhaps as a way of protecting her from the world or punishing Michael for leaving. Their actions ultimately create a profoundly confused and isolated individual, whose identity crisis and longing for connection drive the film’s psychological horror.

Fred Myrow’s score, at times placid and at others discordant, weaves through the film like a ghost, reinforcing the sense of unreality and unease.

The performances—especially Locke’s haunted, otherworldly Marguerite—anchor the film’s dreamlike tone, while Fraker’s visual style keeps us off-balance, never quite sure what is real and what is fantasy, what is fact and what is shadow.

A Reflection of Fear is not a film of easy answers or conventional shocks. Instead, it lingers in the mind as a study in isolation, repression, and the monstrous consequences of secrets kept too long. It’s a film that unsettles more than it terrifies, leaving behind a residue of unease—a reflection, perhaps, of the fears that are not willing to be named.

Sunday Nite Surreal-A Reflection of Fear-William Fraker’s Directorial Foray Beyond The Outer Limits into a Psycho-Sexual Miasma

#115 down, 35 to go! Your EverLovin’ Joey, formally & affectionately known as MonsterGirl!

Sunday Nite Surreal-A Reflection of Fear-William Fraker’s Directorial Foray Beyond The Outer Limits into a Psycho-Sexual Miasma

A REFLECTION OF FEAR 1973

Reflection+of+Fear

If a movie lingers, if it stays with you for hours, days, then it has done something right. I think this film is perhaps as uniquely disturbing as it is underrated & thoughtfully done. The subject matter is perverse and a potent yet slightly murky thriller. A provocative, revolting little psychodrama. One with an eerie, queasy moodiness amidst the ornate set design and restrained performances.

A Reflection of Fear Locke

The ’70s were so good for giving us these kinds of surreal, sinisterly captivating, and unsettling themes. The House That Screamed 1963, Let’s Scare Jessica to Death 1971, Silent Night, Bloody Night 1972, Lemora” A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural 1973, Blood and Lace 1971, What’s The Matter With Helen 1971, so many, too many to mention. Narratives rife with taboos, power struggles, psychosis, ritual murders, and deviance.

Directed by William Fraker (cinematographer on Rosemary’s Baby 1968, Bullitt 1968 uncredited on Incubus 1966 for Roger Corman, and The Day of The Dolphin 1973, Looking for Mr Goodbar 1977).

A Reflection of Fear 1973 was hacked to pieces in order to receive a PG rating for Columbia Pictures. Fraker made his feature debut as cinematographer on one of my favorite psychological thrillers – Curtis Harrington’s cat and mouse thriller GAMES 1967 with Simone Signoret. He was the camera operator for my beloved fantasy ’60s series The Outer Limits TV series 1963-1965. No wonder that this film’s atmosphere is a hazy, dreamy landscape that transcends the outward appearance of reality.

There is nothing wrong with your television set… Do not attempt to adjust the picture, we are controlling transmission: The Transendental Heartbeat of The Outer Limits 1963-1965

László Kovács (Easy Rider ’69, That Cold Day in the Park ’69) enhances the look and feel of the film as director of Photography. A Reflection of Fear is based on a novel by Stanton Forbes called Go To Thy Deathbed with a screenplay by Lewis John Carlino (Seconds 1966, The Mechanic 1972, The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea 1976).

Blogger David Furtado from his fabulous Wand’rin’ Star cites in a post from Sondra Locke’s autobiography The Good, The Bad and The Very Ugly- A Hollywood Journey

“Then came a film which was a landmark, professionally and personally: A Reflection of Fear, directed by promising filmmaker William A. Fraker, who had been nominated for several Oscars as a director of photography, and who had directed Monte Walsh with Lee Marvin and Jeanne Moreau, one of the last great and underestimated westerns. Sondra Locke plays the mysterious and unbalanced “ ˜Marguerite’, a girl of sixteen.

As Marguerite in A Reflection of Fear (released in 1973).

“Once again, Gordon and her plotted a scheme to get Fraker interested, since they both thought the role was almost perfect for her. Gordon Anderson even played the “voice” of “˜Aaron’, Marguerite’s alter-ego. Unfortunately, the film was butchered by Columbia since it dealt with themes deemed too strong for the general public. Locke found the attitude ridiculous, even more so because, at that time, “audiences were enthralled with the young girl in The Exorcist, spewing vomit and masturbating with crucifixes”. Nonetheless, she became longtime friends with the director and his future wife Denise, who was very supportive when Locke had serious health problems.”

This is the first film of underrated cult star Sandra Locke. She was perfectly unorthodox, as the odd Agatha Jackson alongside Colleen Camp in DEATH GAME 1977, where they held actor Seymour Cassel hostage and played mind games with him. As Marguerite, she is perfectly chilling in her debut.

Sandra Locke is the captivating young sylph, Marguerite, and Robert Shaw portrays her estranged father, Michael. Mary Ure  (Shaw’s real-life wife at the time) plays her mother, Katherine. Swedish actress Signe Hasso lurks as Marguerite’s sinister grandmother, Julia. This harpy-like matron seems to be the locus of the askew matriarchy that treats Marguerite like a sickly princess caught in a closed universe. It plays like a dark fairy tale where, initially, she appears to be at the mercy of wicked women.

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Mary Ure is absolutely gorgeous, seductive, and refined. Signe Hasso is a marvelous actress I’ve admired for a while now; she’s elegant and quite regal though imposing as her character called for. Both Ure & Hasso exude an unsavory perfume.

Look Back in Anger with Richard Burton & Mary Ure
Richard Burton and Mary Ure in Look Back In Anger, 1959

Quirky and affable Sally Kellerman plays Michael’s fiancé, Anne, who worked with Fraker on The Bellero Shield with Martin Landau, airing on Feb. 10th, 1964—one of my favorite The Outer Limits episodes with the Bifrost alien. Fraker also worked on the set with Signe Hasso on The Outer Limits  Production and Decay of Strange Particles, which is yet another superb entry in the short-lived yet transcendently brilliant series.

The Bellero Shield
Chita Rivera, Sally Kellerman, and Martin Landau in The Bellero Shield- The Outer Limits- William Fraker was on the camera crew.
Hasso & George Macready in The Outer LImits
George Macready and Signe Hasso in Production and Decay of Strange Particles -as part of  The Outer Limits 60s TV series.

Gordon Anderson (also the voice of Ratboy 1986) is the voice in the film of the imperceptible Aaron, doll or boy I won’t tell …

Fred Myrow (Soylent Green 1973, Scarecrow 1973, Phantasm 1979)  is responsible for the haunting musical score that is dizzying with lilting harps and mandolin, low muted French horn, music box shimmer, and eerie wavelengths of noise. Joel Schiller is the art director (Rosemary’s Baby 1968, The Muppet Movie) and Phil Abramson (Bullitt 1968, Close Encounters of the Third Kind 1977 and Raging Bull 1980) does the creepy and suffocating set design which is perfect for the sense of repression, dread, and decay.

A Reflection of Fear has been referred to as a proto-slasher. There is the use of a caped hooded ‘masher.’ Perhaps this film set off a slew of slashers to come, but several reviews have cited a correlation between this film and Hitchcock’s Psycho ’60. Perhaps it’s the bright child with a mother complex who likes horticulture instead of taxidermy. Anyhoo, as an obscure ’70s psycho-sexual thriller, it has its universe to spin in.

If I were to disclose anything because I love a good hint- I could say the closest the film’s storyline comes to is actually an episode of the 1968 TV series  Journey to the Unknown“Miss Belle” with George Maharis and Barbara Jefford, but that’s all I’m sayin’… if you know the episode I mean, I’ve just given you a golden crumb to nibble on.

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The multi-layered narrative surrounds a disturbed and alienated sixteen-year-old girl named Marguerite (Sondra Locke), who exists in a private world of dolls that she talks to and who in voice-over – talks back in the quietude and opulent isolation with her affluent mother (Mary Ure) and grandmother (Signe Hasso) at an exclusive Inn somewhere in Canada. Marguerite is not only held captive by her mother and grandmother but, to my impression, is seemingly a willing recluse who yearns for the love of the father she’s only known by the various books he sends her on art, flowers, etc.

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Katharine (Ure) and Grandmother (Hasso) read a letter from Michael.

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Grandma Julia-“I hardly think he’s coming again for you my dear she’s his daughter after all” Mother Katherine-“We’ve been so careful Mother” Julia-“A glimpse would perhaps satisfy him for another fifteen years” Katharine-“A glimpse would hardly satisfy Michael of Marguerite” Julia- “Would you stir his curiosity? And… Marguerite seeing Michael might tempt her to certain idolatry of the man.”

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Sandra Locke’s intense eyes.

Something is not right within the family dynamic. When Marguerite’s father Michael (Robert Shaw) finally arrives this particular languid summer to ask his wife for a divorce so he can marry Anne (Sally Kellerman), the vitriol comes out as Grandmare “turns the knife in” as Michael exclaims. Mary refuses to set him free unless he agrees to never see Marguerite ever again.

Once Michael sees his wisp of a daughter, whom he’s never known in the flesh, his peculiar gaze becomes transfixes on her. He finds her enchanting. He actually says so several times. Yet he is concerned about the way his wife and mother-in-law are holding the child prisoner. As he considers rescuing the child, the dynamic starts to invade Anne’s future life with Michael, and the brutal murders begin to ensue.

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Katharine see Michael again after many years.

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Michael returns to meet his daughter.

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reflection of fear dinner table

One of the central mysteries is whether Marguerite is being driven mad by her mother and grandmother, is she delusional, or if there truly is an Aaron – her mysterious unseen playmate? Either way, the concept is provocative and malefic. Always lensed in darkness, it adds to the creepiness of the matter at hand. “You keep me cooped up in here like one of the dead dolls in your trunk,”- whispers Aaron a mere shadow.

portrait of Aaron with his killer staff
The painting of the figure in black with a large staff looks similar to the life-size doll of Aaron that Marguerite keeps in her bedroom.

The local police come to investigate. Mitchell Ryan plays the cop who suspects the father, Michael, of the murders. The lovers, Michael and Anne (Kellerman), are to remain close to the crime scene, so they move into the estate as sort of an unspoken house arrest.

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Mitchell Ryan interviews Robert Shaw about the murders.

Sondra Locke manages to catch my interest with curiosity at her queer sort of whimsical prettiness, more odd than sensual. Here as childlike, gaunt,and pale as schoolhouse chalk, which works for the character of Marguerite. She carries on creepy Socratic dialogues with her decrepit dolls.

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Marguerite’s presence is both disturbing and sympathetic as she plays at being a fay prisoner, kept isolated by her grandmother and mother while exhibiting extraordinary intelligence and a primal burgeoning sexuality.

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The image of Aaron slowly arises in the frame in pure shadow- it’s a very powerfully eerie moment in the film.

Marguerite lives in a fantasy world, she’s brilliant, owns microscopes, a pond filled with amoebas, has full knowledge of horticulture, stamen and pistils and all that, has rooms filled with a myriad of creepy dolls in tatters and decay, a specie of cannibal fish which she finds quite natural in the natural order of things.

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Something that Michael’s girlfriend Anne will invoke when describing how Marguerite is trying to “devour” her father. Consume him, which he allows, as part of the odd liturgy of perverse underpinnings of the narrative. Incest, sexual repression, sexual mutilation, castration anxiety, oedipal lust, castrating females-misandry (women hating men) “Don’t ever let a man touch you, it’ll mean death.” Her mother tells Marguerite in a flashback through voice-over.

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Marguerite’s main confidant is a doll… or is he… named Aaron, a very belligerent spirit either way, who is quite possessive of Marguerite and seems to be destructive, antagonistic, and malevolent. Neither the mother nor grandmother believe he is anything more than a doll. Or perhaps they know more than they are willing to disclose to Michael when he comes to visit after 15 years. He wants to marry the lovely Anne, but Marguerite’s mother refuses to give him a divorce as a way of punishing him and using it as a weapon to keep him from seeing his daughter again.

During his visit, the odd relationship is shown, depicting father and daughter in a sexualized framework. It’s painful to watch as Michael doesn’t discourage Marguerite’s advances, not even in front of Anne.

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The cringy relationship between father and daughter.

Aaron begins to become more violent as the father and Anne intrude on the opulent, isolated netherworld these women seem to inhabit. Fraker, who was the director of photography on D.H Lawrence’s story The Fox 1967 directed by Mark Rydell, is really good at capturing the visual sense of place surrounding alienation, repression, and the immortal triangle. A quiet world, when all at once an intruder turns everything into chaos.

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Katharine is destroyed by Michael’s presence.

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The film is rather brutal and grotesque even within the kaleidoscopic colors and hazy shadows that both Fraker and Kovács manifest to murk and lurk and obscure what we see. This heightens the horror of the thing rather than impinges on it. The incandescent lighting and subdued colors of cinematography by the great László Kovács using filters and gels create a hazy, shadowy landscape that’s as enigmatic as the story.

The murders are savage, phallus-driven mutilations and speak of sexual repression and hatred toward women.

Marguerite is referred to as “enchanting” more than once. Her skin is translucent, and her Alice in Wonderland exterior purposefully dresses her up to look as if she’s falling through the rabbit hole at any minute. This might be a way to draw attention to the underlying turmoil of growing sexual awakening. Once her mother and grandmother are out of the way, she begins to wear more adult clothing. She also injects bottles of what is supposed to be insulin, but the labels have been removed from the bottles: Curiouser and curiouser.

At one point, she asks her father to give her the injection so that it won’t hurt as much. In retrospect, I think this is a pretty clear allusion to Marguerite’s desire to have her father penetrate her.

Sandra Locke’s performance is quite chilling, with her childlike, almost sociopathic lack of affect, it comes across as an eerie sexualized pubescent blonde droid, rather than a child who has been secreted away by the older women in her life, in a clandestine garden paradise with malevolent forces afoot.

Her voice is a frail, wispy spirit with no earthly substance, dressed in little girl finery, spouting factoids about sea life and flowers but bearing no resemblance to a real child of this world. Initially, her dolls have more breadth to them. But Marguerite begins to awaken by the presence of her father.

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Marguerite’s dolls represent her closed world; some even mimic the people in her sheltered life… Herself, Grandmare, and Father…

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Marguerite’s mother and grandmother are cold and uncommunicative. There’s no sign of nurturing, although her mother calls her chéri.

The two women obviously hate men and have done a good job of keeping little Marguerite from coming in contact with anyone of the male species. Even the male fish get eaten by the stronger female of the species.

Sally Kellerman is the one character that buoys us to the normal ‘outside’ practical world. She sees all the subversive deeds and perversions that are rampant around the old estate but still refuses to walk away from the man she loves. She is the one stable witness to the madness as it unfolds.

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William Fraker and screenwriters Edward Hume and Lewis John Carlino (who also wrote the screenplay for The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea in ’76 interesting enough this too dealt with disturbed children with higher intelligence), allow the repulsive sexualized relationship between father and daughter to flourish til we’re as completely uncomfortable as Anne is.

In a very edgy scene where Marguerite, whose room is next to her father and Anne, masturbates while the couple is making love. Marguerite calls out “father’while she climaxes so that the couple can hear her cries. Anne finds this entire experience vile, though by now, she shouldn’t be surprised by the odd child’s behavior and finally almost leaves Michael yet still remains in this sick environment.

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Anne and a day at the beach with Michael and Marguerite.

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The film is apparently heavily cut due to censorship in order to secure a ‘PG’ rating for its original U.S. theatrical release in the early ’70s. I’d love to see the unedited version someday.

The shocking twist ending was a bit muddled in terms of its visual revelation, but finding out that the film was badly modified due to censorship might explain some of the jagged continuity. I don’t mind the obfuscation of various key scenes as they add to the sense of mystery and concealment. The reveal at the end comes to full fruition like a gut punch.

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Sadly, Mary Ure died suddenly in her sleep in 1975 after an accidental overdose of pills and booze. The imposing and ever larger-than-life actor Robert Shaw suffered a massive heart attack in 1978 and so joined her in death.

This film is not for everyone, especially those that find psycho-sexual thrillers objectionable because their pathology is usually based on some kind of subversive wiring in the brain or dysfunctional or arrested development of the family structure. But if you’re like me, who just can’t devour enough obscure 70s dark and delectable lunacy, then try and catch this one night… bring your favorite doll. And if it is your cup of arsenic-laced tea, you might also try Secret Ceremony 1968 starring Elizabeth Taylor, Mia Farrow, and Robert Mitchum. It also promises to disturb!

This has been a reflection of -Your EverLovin’ MonsterGirl