BEWARE MY BRETHREN 1972
Beware My Brethren 1972 (also known as The Fiend) is a ’70s British psychological thriller directed by Robert Hartford-Davis. The film explores themes of religious fanaticism, sexual repression, and murderous obsession.
The story centers around the Wemys family: Birdy Wemys (Ann Todd), A diabetic widow who has become deeply involved with a fundamentalist religious sect called “the Brethren.” Kenny Wemys (Tony Beckley known for his disturbing portrayal of the homicidal psychopath Curt Duncan in When A Stranger Calls 1979), Birdy’s troubled and socially inept son, becomes a serial killer targeting young women he perceives as sinful. Patrick Magee plays the charismatic leader of the Brethren.
Brigitte Lynch (Madeleine Hinde) is a nurse hired to care for Birdy. Paddy Lynch (Suzanna Leigh), who plays Brigitte’s sister, is a journalist who goes undercover to investigate the Brethren.
The film is notable for several unsettling aspects. For one thing, its religious fervor: The Brethren’s intense services, complete with gospel-style music and frenzied baptisms, create an atmosphere of religious hysteria that is almost as disturbing as the killings. The graphic violence exacted by Kenny’s murderous mania and hatred of women is portrayed in brutal detail, with victims being strangled, stripped naked, and disposed of in shocking ways (e.g., dropped from cement mixers, hung on meat hooks, drowning, and crucifixion.
The sexual repression is not only attributed to Kenny’s murderous impulses, which are driven by his disgust at perceived sexual immorality, leading to disturbing scenes of violence against women but by his mother’s own sexual repression and latent lesbian desires. The Minister’s psychological manipulation and control over his followers, particularly Birdy, showcases the dangerous power of cult-like religious groups.
Director Hartford-Davis uses unsettling images, including dream sequences and vivid color contrasts, to create a disorienting and nightmarish atmosphere.
The opening sequence intercuts a religious service with the pursuit and murder of a young woman, set to an incongruously upbeat gospel song that includes lyrics like Wash Me In His Blood. Kenny’s attack on a prostitute, which involves forcing a torch down her throat, is particularly ferocious. Birdy’s lesbian attraction to Paddy leads to her being denied life-saving insulin by the Minister. All these elements, the religious extremism, sexual repression, and violence, make Beware My Brethren a deeply uncomfortable British video nasty.
WHEN A STRANGER CALLS 1979
When a Stranger Calls (1979), directed by Fred Walton, is one of the most chilling psychological thrillers of the late 1970s that has become a cult classic, particularly due to its shocking, nail-biting opening sequence.
Tony Beckley’s performance as Curt Duncan, the psychopathic killer, was notably compelling due to the actor’s low affect and intensity. Beckley portrayed Duncan as a complex character, balancing between a desperate attempt at sanity and terrifying volatility, tearing two young children apart with his bare hands.
Beckley did a masterful job of making his fiend both sympathetic and frightening. Tragically, this was Beckley’s final film role, as he passed away shortly after the movie’s release.
The film’s reception was mixed upon its initial release: Critics praised the opening 20-23 minutes, consistently regarding it as one of the scariest openings in film history. If memory serves me, it made me jump out of my seat in the theater. Despite mixed reviews, the film was commercially successful, grossing between $21.4 to $25 million against a $1.5 million budget.
Director Fred Walton, along with co-writer Steve Feke, based the story on the urban legend of “the babysitter and the man upstairs.” They claimed to have drawn inspiration from a real newspaper article about a babysitter in Santa Monica who received threatening calls from an attacker inside the house. The cast includes Carol Kane as Jill Johnson, the babysitter, Charles Durning as John Clifford, the undaunted detective on Duncan’s trail, and Colleen Dewhurst as Tracy, the barfly to whom Duncan takes an odd shine to.
The film’s narrative structure is unique, essentially combining two short stories with a police procedural middle section. The opening sequence, featuring Kane as the terrorized babysitter, is particularly noteworthy for its escalation of the tension and use of the telephone as a source of horror. Reminiscing of Bob Clark’s Black Christmas 1974, which used the telephone ingeniously. Black Christmas weaponizes it as an instrument of psychological terror, serving as a seminal example of this technique. The film’s masterful use of menacing phone calls transforms a mundane household object into a conduit for fear, creating an atmosphere of inescapable dread.
