☆ ☆ ☆
The Shuttered Room (1967) – D. Greene
Based on a short
story by August Derlath purportedly from notes by H. P. Lovecraft, the film
seeks to conjure up a foreboding feeling of dread focused on an unknown (but
horrible) creature locked behind a red door. A prelude shows us a toddler
threatened by the (unseen) beast whose parents then meet their doom when trying
to coax it back to the titular room. After the credits, the toddler has grown
up to be 21-year-old Susannah Whatley (Carol Lynley), now travelling back to
her remote island birthplace with her husband Mike (Gig Young) after growing up
in New York City following the death of her parents. On the island, they meet a
bunch of menacing rednecks (led by Oliver Reed, sporting an American accent
despite the fact that filming was in the UK). Someone suggested that the film
resembles Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs (1971) and I suppose that’s not far wrong, given
the threat of rape here, although Gig Young is hardly the right actor to act as
though his masculinity is threatened. The film moves inexorably toward the
reveal of the creature and ends with tragedy rather than horror. Dated for
sure, but creepy at times.
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