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.
